Authorities charged dozens of Indonesian police officers in connection with a stampede at a soccer event that killed 125 people, as authorities sought to establish what caused one of the world’s deadliest stadium tragedies and who was to blame.
On Saturday, panicked spectators were crushed as they attempted to exit the overcrowded stadium in Malang, East Java, after police fired tear gas to disperse Arema FC fans who had spilled onto the pitch following a 3-2 home defeat to Persebaya Surabaya.
Soccer’s world governing body FIFA stipulates no “crowd control gas” should be used at matches, and Choirul Anam, a commissioner for Indonesian rights body Komnas HAM, told a news briefing that if gas hadn’t been fired “maybe there wouldn’t have been chaos.”
The death toll was the largest at a soccer match since 1964, when 328 were killed in a crush as Peru hosted Argentina in Lima.
Nine police were stripped of their positions and the local police chief transferred, police spokesperson Dedi Prasetyo said, adding that 28 officers were under investigation.
The decision to use tear gas was among the issues being looked into, he added.
Mourners gathered outside the stadium on Monday. Some scattered flowers over an Arema club shirt while others prayed quietly, or wept, among them the club’s manager Ali Fikri.
Chief security minister Mahfud MD said the government would form a fact-finding team, comprising academics, soccer experts and officials, to probe what happened.
“They have been asked… in the next coming days to reveal the culprits that were involved in the crime,” Mahfud told a news conference.