Mozes Kilangin Airport

According to military spokesmen, Kopassus Second Lieutenant Sanurip was reprimanded by another officer for being noisy when he awoke in a hangar that was used by the military as a commando post since the riots in Timika had erupted. As a reaction to this Sanurip began firing with his assault rifle at about 7 a.m. He first shot five other military personnel, including Lieutenant Colonel Adel Gustinigo, commander of Detachment 81, the counter-terrorist arm of the Indonesian army's elite special forces, as well as a major and captain, and then shot indiscriminately at anyone, while running out of the hangar.[2][3]

Within seconds he killed 16 people – 5 Kopassus officers, 6 ABRI soldiers and 5 civilians, one of them New Zealander Michael Findlay, a helicopter pilot working for Airfast – and injured another 11-13, ten ABRI officers and three civilian/12 were military personnel and the remaining casualty a civil aviation worker. He was being held in military custody in Timika.[4][3]

Sanurip was eventually shot in the leg and subdued by other soldiers.[5]

[6][7][8]

The motive behind the rampage was not immediately known, though it was suggested that Sanurip was suffering from depression and was not in a healthy state, perhaps due to a malaria infection.[3]

It was further reported that an army transporter, carrying the two soldiers killed in Mapenduma, made a fuel stop at Timika airport that morning, and that Sanurip began shooting after seeing their remains and realising that one of them was a friend of his, though it was stated by military spokesmen this information was not true and that there was no connection between the arrival of the bodies and the mass murder.[2][3][9]

Also repudiated were initial reports that there was a heated argument between Sanurip and his superiors prior to the shooting.[4] [10]

Among those killed were:[11][12][13]

Among those wounded was Airfast employee Sarjito.[14]

Two Kopassus and one Kostrad treated in Gatot Subroto Civilian in Pondok Indah Four in Jakarta

Sanurip was sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Jayapura on April 23, 1997.[15] After the decision was made public, Amnesty International uttered concerns, because the court had rejected evidence regarding Sanurip's mental health.[16]

The Military High Court in Surabaya dismissed his appeal on June 18, 1997, and also discharged him from the Indonesian Armed Forces and ordered him to pay a nominal court fee, whereupon he lodged an appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court.[17]

He later died in a hospital.[18]

A military tribunal has sentenced to death a soldier who went on a shooting rampage in which he killed 16 people in Irian Jaya last year.

A military tribunal rejected the defence that Second Lieutenant Sanurip was suffering from malaria-induced depression

The defence said Sanurip, who collapsed when the sentence was passed, would appeal. Military experts said it would be the first execution by firing squad of a soldier in almost three decades and that it reflected Indonesia's wish to avoid diplomatic tension with New Zealand and Australia, where Mr Finlay's family lives.[19]

The shooting is currently the deadliest workplace shooting in modern history.