Mystery surrounding New Zealand pilot’s death in Indonesia’s Papua deepens
Shocking pictures have emerged showing slain pilot Glen Malcolm Conning after he was allegedly attacked and killed by rebels.
Shocking pictures have emerged showing slain New Zealand pilot Glen Malcolm Conning after he was allegedly attacked and killed by rebels in Indonesia’s Papua last week – prompting further speculation about the murky details surrounding his death.
In the photographs, which news.com.au has seen but which are too distressing to publish, Mr Conning, 50, is slumped in the pilot’s seat of a helicopter with his clothes dishevelled and his body covered in blood and slash marks.
Indonesian police said Mr Conning’s helicopter was attacked last Monday when it landed in Mimika Regency in Central Papua Province.
According to the head of the joint military-police Cartenz Peace Operation Task Force in Papua rebels in the area attacked the helicopter and released four Indigenous Papuan passengers including a child and baby before shooting Mr Conning dead.
The plane was a private aircraft operated by the Intan Angkasa Air Service.
“It is confirmed that there was a hostage situation and murder carried out by the armed criminal group,” Brigadier General Faizal Ramadhani said, referring to the West Papua National Liberation Army known as TPNPB.
Papua is located in the western half of the island of New Guinea to the north of Australia, and the Indonesian government considers it part of its territory. The TPNPB is the armed wing of the wider Free Papua Movement which has been fighting for independence since 1969, and the Indonesian government classifies the TPNPB as a terrorist organisation.
Indonesian pathologist Dr Abdul Gafar, who is based in the city of Medan, viewed the photographs of the helicopter and told news.com.au it was difficult to assess what had happened without additional photographs of the scene.
“However, what we can see is a cut made with a sharp object on [Mr Conning’s] left arm which could be a defensive wound,” he said, explaining Mr Conning may have raised his arm to protect himself as he was attacked with a knife or machete.
He said there were no signs of a gunshot wound from the photographs, but this could have been due to the position of Mr Conning’s body.
Asked if the pilot was likely killed inside or outside the helicopter, Dr Gafar said it was possible Mr Conning had been murdered inside the helicopter while trying to escape, depending on the position of the attackers.
However, Bayu Suseno, a spokesman for the joint security task force, previously presented a different version of events, saying in a statement: “The pilot’s body was taken to the helicopter and then burned along with the helicopter”.
In the photographs seen by news.com.au, the helicopter and Mr Conning’s body were both intact.
Damien Kingsbury, an emeritus professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University in Melbourne, told news.com.au it seemed as if the helicopter had not been burned, at least not immediately, although it may have been burned later.
This is not the first time a New Zealand pilot has been targeted in Papua.
About 18 months ago, former Jetstar pilot and New Zealander Phillip Mehrtens was also abducted and remains in captivity.
He was captured in February 2023 by rebels from the TPNPB when his light commercial aircraft was ambushed in the mountainous Nduga region.
Nduga TPNPB leader Egianus Kogoya has threatened to kill Mr Mehrtens on a number of occasions, and said the group would release him only if the Indonesian government agreed to grant Papua independence from Indonesia.
“The site of this attack and Mehrtens’ kidnapping are around 80 or so kilometres apart,” Prof Kingsbury said.
“It may be Kogoya’s group that did this, and it does comply with his threats concerning further foreign ‘incursions’. However, it may also be another TPNPB group, or even a group not aligned with the TPNPB.
“It is generally not TPNPB style to kill foreigners, although they had been clearly warned as the TPNPB had issued a warning to foreigners not to work in or come to West Papua generally and the local area in particular.”
TPNPB spokesman Sebby Samborn said in a recorded statement, which news.com.au has heard, that he had not received reports from the group’s fighters about the killing and did not know who was responsible for Mr Conning’s death.
“But, if that happened, it was his own fault for entering our forbidden territory. We have released warnings several times that the area is under our restricted zone,” he said.
“It is within a conflict zone where civilian aircraft are prohibited from landing and all development activities must be halted. Anyone who ignores this does so at their own risk. “What was the New Zealander doing there? We consider him a spy.”
Deka Anwar of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) told news.com.au the news of Mr Conning’s death was somewhat unexpected, as Mimika has seen a drop in attacks against foreigners in recent years.
“The year 2020 marked the peak of armed conflicts in Mimika as several TPNPB groups from neighbouring regions banded together and launched unprecedented incursions, including an attack on the Freeport office in Kuala Kencana in March 2020. One New Zealand worker was killed during the attack, and four Indonesians were injured,” he said.
Following the attack, the Indonesian army (TNI) and the Indonesian National Police (Polri) amped up their forces and patrol units in Mimika, reportedly forcing local TPNPB groups to relocate to neighbouring regencies, he added.
“Thereafter, the number of ‘battles’ and ‘violence against civilians’ by armed actors dropped significantly from 30 incidents in 2020 down to seven in 2021. The number of clashes declined to one in 2022, none in 2023, and one in 2024 prior to the killing of the New Zealand pilot,” he said,
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Mr Conning was from Motueka in the north of New Zealand’s South Island and was an experienced pilot who had also flown planes fighting bushfires in Christchurch this year.
“[He] was greatly loved by the Motueka community and was a great family man,” his friend Kerry Gatenby told the New Zealand Herald following the news of his death.
Aisyah Llewellyn is a freelance journalist based in Indonesia
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