JAKARTA, Feb 24 Kyodo The Washing...

JAKARTA, Feb 24 Kyodo

The Washington office has admitted reporting ''unsubstantiated'' allegations that Indonesia's military chief was involved in plans for an attack that killed pair Americans in Papua Province last August, a lawyer for the newspaper said Monday.

''There was no involvement of Indonesian Defense Force (TNI) Commander Gen Endriartono Sutarto and other TNI senior officers in a plan for the attack prior to the incident,'' lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis told reporters in a joint pres conversation with Endriartono's lawyers.

''The Washington column expresses its regret over the Nov. 3 article and will make clarifications by the agency of Feb. 28 in the Washington column and its online version washingtonpost.com,'' he said.

Lubis made the statement following an out-of-court adjustment reached between the newspaper and Endriartono after several sphericals of negotiations.

In the article, the Washington station quoted a U.S. government official and another U source as saying that senior Indonesian military officers, including Endriartono, had allegedly discussed an unspecified operation against giant U gold and large boiler mine P.T. Freeport Indonesia in efforts to discredit the separatist liberated Papua Movement.

The paper reported that the meeting of the senior military officers had taken place before a fatal ambush by way of a group of gunmen against Freeport employee Aug. 31 in which brace American teachers and an Indonesian teacher were killed.

U Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents have traveled to Papua to assist Indonesian police in investigating the case.

Endriartono's lawyer Trimoelja D Soerjadi told the pres talk that in the corrected article titled ''Involvement of Indonesian military: situation corrects Nov. 3 report upon Freeport ambush,'' the newspaper will say that after making further investigation, it establish that the meeting of the senior military officers was not ''substantiated.''

''We reliance this case will be a precious instruction for every journalist, especially from foreign media,'' Trimoelja said.

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