Two officers arrested over boat disaster

Iraqi refugees protested to the UN in Jakarta on Friday

Two Indonesian police officers have been arrested for protecting smugglers who organised a boat for illegal immigrants that sank last week, killing more than 350 people.

Indonesian national police chief Suroyo Bimantoro said the officers had been arrested in Riau province on Sumatra island.

We are not protecting the smugglers, we are hunting for them

Police Chief Suroyo Bimantoro

However, he denied media reports that police pointed their guns at frightened immigrants who wanted to get off the boat because they feared it was unsafe for the journey to Australia.

One survivor of the accident, an Iraqi, said on Wednesday that about 30 police officers armed with pistols and automatic weapons forced passengers onto the wooden boat, even though several did not want to go after seeing its poor condition.

Police chief Bimantoro: Officers are now being questioned

"They said they were willing to kill us," said Achmad Hussein Ali, speaking through a translator. "The police even beat two refugees with their rifle butts."

He said a police boat then escorted the asylum-seekers' boat out of the port.

But police chief Bimantoro denied the allegations. He said: "They did not point their guns. They guarded [the immigrants]."

He said the two arrested men were both brigadiers, a relatively low rank in the Indonesian police force

He also said police were searching for four people smugglers believed to have organised the boat. He said one was a Malaysian citizen, one Iraqi and two Indonesians.

Australian election

Thousands of asylum seekers travel to Indonesia each year, using it as a springboard from which to get to Australia.

But Australia, which is currently in the middle of a general election campaign due on 10 November, has taken a hard line against boat people, and since August it has refused to accept them.

Iraqi Hazam Al Rowaimi lost hiw mother, wife and four children

Since then it has turned away about 1,500 migrants, sending them to other countries including Nauru, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea for processing.

Opposition leader Kim Beazley said on Friday that the policy would be no different under a Labor government.

But he said the policy could only succeed by negotiating with Indonesia to persuade it accept returned asylum seekers for processing.

The authorities in Australia have sentenced four Indonesian people-smugglers to six years in prison for bringing more than 200 asylum-seekers to the Australian territory of Christmas Island in June.