JAKARTA, Indonesia-
A U.S. mining executive has filed a civil lawsuit against The New York Times in Indonesia, saying he wanted to clear his name following allegations that Newmont Mining Corp. dumped dangerous levels of arsenic and mercury into an Indonesian bay.
Richard Ness, 57, who heads the Denver-based company’s local subsidiary, was previously acquitted by the Manado District Court of pollution charges last month after a nearly two-year criminal trial.
Ness said the allegations were fueled by a Sept. 8, 2004 front-page article in The New York Times that said villagers living near the now-defunct mine on Sulawesi Island had reported skin diseases and the death of a child.
Ness said the Times’ front page story “convicted me in the court of public opinion even though credible scientific studies had proven there was no pollution or illness in Buyat Bay.”
The Central Jakarta District Court confirmed Tuesday that Ness’ lawyers filed a civil action suit against The New York Times and writer Jane Perlez, seeking unspecified monetary compensation and an apology from the paper.
Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, said in an e-mailed statement: “Over the past few years, The Times has devoted significant resources to covering the social, political, and environmental impact of large-scale mining by Newmont and other companies around the world. We think this is an important global story for our readers, and our coverage of Newmont has been accurate and fair. We plan to defend the suit vigorously.”
The lengthy trial in Manado, some 1,300 miles northeast of Jakarta, was complicated by conflicting test results, almost all of which said pollutants in Buyat Bay were well within normal limits.
Judges ruled that waste rock dumped into the water did not exceed government standards and that there was no evidence villagers suffered health problems because of Newmont’s mining operations.
Newmont, one of the world’s largest gold miners, began operations in Sulawesi in 1996 and stopped mining in 2002 after extracting all the gold it could. But it continued processing ore until Aug. 31, 2004, when the mine was closed.
