US gold miner Newmont confident of Indonesian pollution verdict

US gold miner Newmont confident of Indonesian pollution verdict

	Published : Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:23 By : Agencies Print this Story

JAKARTA (XFN-ASIA) - US mining group Newmont voiced confidence it would win a controversial pollution trial next week, saying claims the company and one of its executives poisoned an Indonesian bay are baseless.

Newmont executive Richard Ness said the prosecution's case against him and the Indonesian unit of the company had been 'torn apart' during the 20-month trial closely watched by foreign investors.

An Indonesian court is expected to rule next Tuesday on whether Newmont and Ness polluted Buyat Bay in northern Sulawesi with arsenic and mercury from its now defunct gold mine on the island.

They are also accused of sickening villagers and killing marine life around Manado where the mine was sited, around 2,300 kilometers northeast of Jakarta.

Ness, who heads PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, the Indonesian subsidiary of the Denver-based company, faces three years in prison if convicted while the company would receive a fine.

'When you look through this whole trial process, starting with the prosecution's witnesses, I think almost every one of them failed to be convincing or their testimony was torn apart by our lawyers,' Ness said.

'Our lawyers then systematically proved ... that the bay was not polluted, that the water was fine, that the fish were fine,' he told reporters.

The highly charged case against Newmont, the world's largest gold miner, has pitted environmentalists against mining firms.

Ness reiterated that Newmont, which has been mining in mineral-rich Indonesia for more than a decade, could rethink its operations here if either he or the company was found guilty.

'I can't speak for the whole corporation but I can say what our chairman has already stated. He said that anything short of a whole exoneration, they would have to reconsider their position (here),' he said.

Newmont has consistently denied the charges, saying it disposed of toxins safely and that levels of mercury and arsenic found around the mine were well within acceptable levels.

Studies of the waters around Buyat Bay have shown conflicting results. A World Health Organization-backed report found no evidence of pollution but government tests showed high level of toxins.

Ness said he hopes for a 'fair and reasonable verdict' from the panel of five judges after three years of legal wrangling over the case.

'Our lawyers have proved that Buyat Bay was not polluted,' he said.

'The (prosecution) only had one doctor and she retracted her testimony early on so I don't see there's any evidence left standing,' Ness said.

'... therefore the allegations are baseless,' he said.

Newmont agreed in February last year to spend 30 mln usd in environmental monitoring of the area, as part of an out-of-court settlement in a civil lawsuit with the Indonesian government.

In December 2004 Buyat Bay villagers dropped a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Newmont.

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