The Free Papua Movement (OPM) has denied allegations it was behind the killing of three men and a woman in Nafri village, Jayapura, early on Monday morning.
The organization rejected the allegations, adding that the government and military had deliberately blamed it for the incident.
“[Nothing] we've been accused of is true. We received an order from our headquarters on [Aug.] 26 to lay down our arms. So, if there has been any shootings since that, it would not have been done by one of us,” OPM chief for Keerom and surrounding areas Lambert Pekikir said in Jayapura on Sunday evening, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.
Lambert added that the Indonesian Military (TNI) should already know who the perpetrators were.
“It could have been ordinary civilians who wanted to create disorder. Let me reaffirm that we took no part in the killing of civilians and a soldier this morning,” Lambert said.
He also said the morning star flag found at the crime scene should not be taken as evidence of OPM's involvement, since anyone could have put the flag there to make it look his organization was involved.
The morning star flag has often been used by the OPM and has been outlawed as a separatist symbol by the Indonesian government.
Earlier, the National Police announced that the OPM was responsible for the incident.