Events leading to the deaths of some 370 asylum seekers on board a fishing boat that sank off Java, Indonesia last week are still unclear. Some survivors are claiming that uniformed men pointed guns at people who wanted to disembark.
The police chief denied reports that a dozen police had protected the smugglers. Two survivors said they saw no police before the overcrowded boat left Sumatra. But two others said a number of armed men in uniforms would not let people off the leaking boat before it sailed
One said he believed the men were immigration officials.
The events highlight an increasing refugee problem for Jakarta and Canberra as more and more boats are setting out with their human cargo of Middle Eastern and Afghani asylum-seekers bound for Australia, a country unwilling to take in boat people.
"I saw four of them, they were pointing their guns at us. I think they were immigration people," Mr Jalal Mohsin, a 34-year-old Iraqi, said.
"I wanted to get off but they wouldn't let me." He was confident the men were not police.
Mr Ali Hameed Ahmad (28) who said he was a Kurdish refugee, claimed he saw 30 armed men in uniform. "Two (refugees) were beaten by the men in uniform. We were not allowed to get off," he said.
Only 44 refugees survived the sinking, one of Indonesia's worst maritime disasters and a dark reminder of the plight of thousands of refugees who use Indonesia as a springboard to try to reach Australia each year.
The boat was already leaking when it left Sumatra for Australia's remote Christmas Island, a popular landing target for asylum seekers. It sank off the coast of Java.
"There was nothing like that," police chief Gen Bimantoro told reporters when asked about a report in the Sydney Morning Times alleging police pointed their guns at asylum seekers who wanted to leave the boat. Mr Ali Jawad, an Iraqi survivor, said that no police or other officials were present when the boat left. "There were no photographers, no police, just us," he said.