6 theSun | THURSDAY MAY 21 2009

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98 killed in Indonesia plane crash
JAKARTA: An Indonesian
military transport plane carry-
ing 110 passengers and crew
crashed and burst into flames
in East Java yesterday, killing
at least 98 people on board and
on the ground, officials said.
The C-130 Hercules aircraft
ploughed into several houses
on the ground, scattering de-
bris and sending flames and
billowing smoke into the air,
in the latest of a series of air
disasters in a country with a
poor air safety record.
Air force spokesman Bam-
bang Soelistyo said that 98
people had been killed, includ-
ing two on the ground, while
there were 15 survivors.
“Some victims are still at
the crash site,” said Soelistyo.
He said the plane, with
11 crew and 99 passengers,
had crashed 6.5 km from the
Iswahyudi air force base in East
Java while preparing to land.
National military spokes-
man Sagom Tamboen told a
news conference the aircraft
had been in good condition
and the weather was clear
before the crash. But army
chief Djoko Santoso later said
there had been fog around the
time of the crash.
The plane had been on a
regular flight from Jakarta
to the Iswahyudi air base in
Magetan to transport military
personnel and their families.
It had been due to fly on to
Sulawesi and Papua.
Television footage from
the scene showed people des-
perately trying to extinguish
flames with buckets of water.
“I heard a thunderous
sound, like a car roaring past.
I looked out and a huge plane
had crashed into a clump of
bamboo. The left wing landed
in front of my house,” eyewit-
ness Sutrisno told Reuters.
An official at the scene, who
asked not to be named, said
there were still three bodies at
the site yet to be evacuated.
“About 15m of the tail is
still intact, but the body to the
EPAPIX
front is broken and burnt,”
said Suwardi, a local offi-
cial in Magetan, who said
the crash took place at
6.30am (7.30am in Malay-
sia) between Madiun and
Magetan, 150km southwest
of Surabaya.
Some relatives of the
victims were sobbing and
praying at the air force hos-
pital in Madiun, where there
were around 18 bodies.
Agus Yulianto, an eye-
witness, told the Kompas
newspaper website the plane
appeared to tilt in the air and
objects rained down from the
aircraft before it crashed.
“Some things were falling,
like bolts and axle nuts from
the plane. The plane kept no-
sediving and finally crashed
on two houses,” Yulianto said.
Purwanto, a survivor of
the disaster, said the plane
crashed and then later ex-
ploded. He was speaking from
a hospital bed with his head
heavily bandaged. – Reuters

Calls grow for war crimes Soldiers at the crash

site during a rescue operation in

probe into Sri Lanka conflict Magetan yesterday.

NEW DELHI: The prospect of be properly investigated.” eyewitness testimony to shell-

war crimes charges following
Sri Lanka’s military victory over
Tamil Tiger rebels loomed larger
yesterday, with UN chief Ban Ki-
moon backing growing calls for a
full investigation.
Thousands of civilians are
believed to have been killed
during the offensive against the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE). Both sides in the conflict
have been accused of rights viola-
tions, with numerous aid agen-
cies and rights groups alleging
indiscriminate army shelling and
condemning the Tigers for using
civilians as a human shield.
The UN secretary-general, who
is due to visit Sri Lanka at the end
of the week, told reporters in Ge-
neva on Tuesday that any serious
allegations of war crimes “should
“I remain concerned about the
welfare and safety of the civilian
population,” Ban added.
The UN’s main rights body is
to hold a special session on Sri
Lanka next week.
“The Human Rights Council
cannot be silent when innocent
civilians are caught up in armed
conflicts,” said council president
Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhihe.
“The international community
must strive to deliver justice to
victims of human rights viola-
tions,” he added.
The military declared final vic-
tory in the decades-old conflict
on Monday after overrunning
the rebels’ last holdout in the
northeast.
In the run-up to the final
battle, there was a stream of
ing by government troops that
caused significant civilian casual-
ties – testimony that has been
staunchly denied by the military.
Aid workers were also denied
access to those trapped by the
fighting, despite accounts of a
jungle area littered with the dead
or dying, with the elderly, women
and children cowering in shallow
dug-outs with little food or water
for several months.
“There has to be account-
ability for what has gone on in Sri
Lanka, there has to be clarity and
there cannot be impunity,” Rupert
Colville, a spokesman for UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights
Navi Pillay, said last week.
Pillay said in March that both
sides may be guilty of war crimes.
– AFP
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi
wishes for ‘better days’
YANGON: Myanmar opposition icon Aung
San Suu Kyi was unexpectedly allowed to
speak to diplomats at her internationally con-
demned trial yesterday and expressed hope
for “better days” in the future.
She smiled and looked healthy as she thanked
envoys for coming to Insein Prison in her first
public comments since the ruling junta charged
her last week with breaching her house arrest,
an AFP reporter inside the court said.
“Thank you very much for coming and for
your support,” the 63-year-old, wearing pink
Burmese traditional dress, said inside the court-
room at the end of the third day of the trial.
“I can’t meet you one by one, but I hope to
meet you all in better days.”
Aung San Suu Kyi then went for a meeting
with the ambassadors of Singapore and Russia
and a senior diplomat from Thailand at the so-
called “guest house” inside the prison compound
where she is being held.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner told the envoys
that she was “well and being well treated” in
prison, the Singaporean government said.
She also said that she “did not wish to use the
intrusion into her home as a way to get at the
Myanmar authorities” and expressed hope for
“national reconciliation if all parties so wished”.
The surprise move by the military regime
to allow some diplomats and media access to
the trial followed intense international pressure
and a scathing condemnation by Myanmar’s
Southeast Asian neighbours.
Aung San Suu Kyi faces up to five years in jail
if convicted of charges of breaching her house
arrest stemming from an incident earlier this
month in which an American man, John Yettaw,
swam to her lakeside house.
Authorities held the first two days of hearings
behind closed doors and had turned away Euro-
pean diplomats on Monday, but said yesterday
representatives from all 30 foreign embassies
would be allowed in.
The regime also allowed five journalists
from foreign news organisations and the same
number from local organisations to report on the
hearing. Details had previously emerged only
in state media or through Aung San Suu Kyi’s
lawyers.
But diplomats said they did not have much
confidence in the trial.
“I think this is a story where the conclusion
is already scripted,” the British ambassador to
Yangon, Mark Canning, told the BBC.
“I don’t have any confidence in the out-
come. While the access we had today was very
welcome, it doesn’t change the fundamental
problem.” – AFP

quake was centered just 16km His sentence is one of the

briefs
Mild quake rattles
Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES: A mild earth-
quake rattled Los Angeles on
Tuesday just two days after a
moderate tremor that struck a
densely populated area and put
the sprawling California metropo-
lis on edge. The 4.1 magnitude
quake struck at 3.49pm (6.49am
in Malaysia yesterday) and shook
buildings across a wide area of
Los Angeles. There were no
immediate reports of injuries or
major damage, officials said. The
southwest of downtown Los
Angeles at a depth of 12.1km,
the United States Geological
Survey (USGS) said. – AFP
Man jailed in
fake catfish scam
LOS ANGELES: A food
wholesaler who imported
millions of dollars worth of
Vietnamese catfish before
falsely reselling it as sole,
grouper and other species
was on Tuesday jailed for 63
months, officials said. The
US Justice Department said
Virginia-based business-
man Peter Xuong Lam, 49,
had imported more than
4,535 tonnes of Vietnam-
ese catfish into the United
States and mislabelled it.
heaviest handed down by a
federal court for falsely labe-
ling seafood, justice officials
said. United States District
Judge Philip Gutierrez also
ordered Lam to forfeit more
than 12 million dollars to re-
imburse the government for
anti-dumping duties avoided
by the conspiracy. – AFP
German-owned
ship freed
BERLIN: The German-owned
grain ship Patriot has been
released by Somali pirates after
some three weeks’ captivity in
the Gulf of Aden, the German
government said on Tuesday
evening. “We can confirm that
the ship is free,” a Foreign Minis-
try spokesman said. – dpa