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Suspects in murder of Malaysian land rights activist charged

JAKARTA — Two men were charged in a Malaysian court on Friday (July 15) over the killing of an indigenous land rights defender, in a case which has cast a spotlight on tribespeople’s decades-long struggle for recognition.

Malaysian Police cordon off the crime scene after opposition politician Bill Kayong, 43, was shot dead in his pickup truck while at a traffic light in Miri, Malaysian Borneo's Sarawak state, on June 21, 2016. Photo: AFP

Malaysian Police cordon off the crime scene after opposition politician Bill Kayong, 43, was shot dead in his pickup truck while at a traffic light in Miri, Malaysian Borneo's Sarawak state, on June 21, 2016. Photo: AFP

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JAKARTA — Two men were charged in a Malaysian court on Friday (July 15) over the killing of an indigenous land rights defender, in a case which has cast a spotlight on tribespeople’s decades-long struggle for recognition.

Mohamad Fitri Pauzi, 29, and Lie Chang Loon, 37, were respectively charged with the murder and abetting in the murder of Mr Bill Kayong in the city of Miri, in the eastern state of Sarawak on June 21, police said.

Mr Kayong — a Dayak, one of the many indigenous tribes in Sarawak — was shot dead in broad daylight in his pick-up truck, prompting outcry from activists linking the murder to his fight for tribal land rights.

Police have refused to confirm whether there were any links to land disputes. “Their motive will be known once the trial commences,” Miri deputy police chief Stanley Ringgit told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

He said police were still hunting for three other suspects.

Indigenous land rights have been a contentious issue in Sarawak, part of the vast island of Borneo which is shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

Activists have long blamed the rapid expansion of palm oil plantations, rampant logging and a wave of dam-building for causing environmental damage and displacing indigenous people.

Tribespeople have staged protests in the past, and have set up road blockades in a bid to stop some mega-projects.

Land rights activists said Mr Kayong, who was active in politics and had stood as an opposition candidate in a recent state election, was involved in a land case involving a plantation company before his killing.

The firm has been trying to evict some 120 tribal families in remote Sarawak, in a dispute since 2014 which has been brought to court and a verdict is still pending, said Mr Abun Sui Anyit, the legal adviser of the Sarawak Dayak Association.

“There was a confrontation between the two sides in April and Mr Kayong had gone there to help calm the indigenous people,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Mr Abun, who is also a lawyer representing Mr Kayong’s family, urged the authorities to get to the bottom of the matter, and go after the “big fish”.

“The family is not happy because the mastermind is still at large. They want the truth, they want to know who is the person that has paid the killer,” he said. Mr Kayong leaves behind a wife and two teenage children.

London-based environmental campaign group Global Witness said Mr Kayong’s killing “shows the risks faced by activists in Sarawak who stand up to the powerful interests behind land grabbing and environmental devastation”.

Campaigners have accused authorities of turning a blind eye to harassment against those who speak up on land rights.

The lawyer of the two accused, Mr Ranbir Singh Sangha, said no pleas were recorded. Both face the death penalty if convicted. THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION

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