ANN/THE JAKARTA POST – Personnel of the joint police-military Operation Cartenz Peace task force were hunting armed rebels on Tuesday who reportedly shot dead a New Zealand helicopter pilot in Central Papua, as authorities retrieved the body of the pilot.
The pilot, named as Glen Malcolm Conning, 50, was killed on Monday after landing at an airstrip in Alama district with four health workers and two children, all of whom survived, according to the representative of the Cartenz task force, which was formed to counter Papua separatists. Conning worked for air cargo transportation company PT Intan Angkasa Air Service.
“The Cartenz task force has deployed four teams to Alama in Timika regency with the task of locating and pursuing the armed group that killed the pilot,” Cartenz spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Bayu Suseno told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Bayu said investigators from Timika Police were still collecting evidence and questioning witnesses.
The Cartenz task force said it had recovered the pilot’s body from Alama and transported it to a hospital in Timika city for an autopsy, AFP reported on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for New Zealand’s foreign ministry told AFP that it was aware of reports of the pilot’s death and said its embassy in Jakarta was seeking further information from authorities.
The incident comes less than two years after another pilot from New Zealand, Phillip Mehrtens, was abducted by a faction of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) led by Egianus Kogoya in Nduga in the neighboring province of Papua Highlands, to the west of Central Papua. He remains in captivity with the TPNPB, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM).
The motive for Monday’s killing was not immediately clear.
