Freeport to appeal Jakarta court ruling soon
Copyright 2001 Reuters
August 31, 2001
JAKARTA - Mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia said yesterday it would soon appeal an Indonesian court ruling which found it gave false information to parliament over a fatal accident at a mining site last year.
The South Jakarta court on Tuesday backed a suit from leading environmental group Walhi which accused the copper and gold miner of telling legislators a landslide at its mine did not cause any fatalities or was due to negligence.
Four workers were killed during that landslide in May last year at the Wanagon Lake waste dump in the remote eastern province of Irian Jaya.
"The appeal is being processed and we will file it soon... What was revealed in court was not precisely correct," company spokesman Sidharta Mursyid told Reuters.
"We did admit that in the accident four people had gone missing who later had been presumed dead," he added.
Mursyid said Freeport also rejected claims it did not care about the environment and that its warning system, to alert workers of the landslide, was not working.
Walhi lawyers said during the trial the system sounded 30 minutes after the waste hit a village near the remote site.
Walhi hailed Tuesday's court ruling which ordered Freeport to improve its toxic waste management.
Freeport - a unit of U.S.-based Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc - runs one of the world's largest copper mines in the jungle-clad eastern Indonesian province of Irian Jaya.