Foreigner in Papua coup plot: arms dealer or ‘adrenaline junkie tourist’?
- Polish citizen Jakob Skrzypski accused of joining the Papua National Liberation Army and offering to help supply it with weapons
- Observers describe him as an avid ‘extreme’ traveller with a passion for other cultures, languages, and humanitarian issues
Jakob Skrzypski left a stable job in Switzerland to travel through Indonesia last year. He visited Java, Sumatra and the tourist island of Bali before heading to the restive provinces of West Papua and Papua.
He was the first foreigner in Indonesia to be charged with the offence, one that could see him spend 20 years in prison, if found guilty.
Skrzypski has been accused of plotting a coup with a pro-independence Papuan armed group and offering to help supply it weapons to overthrow the Indonesian government.
Skrzypski, who sports a bushy beard and has his hair tied back, has been held in a small, poorly-lit jail cell as he awaits trial in Wamena, an isolated town in Papua’s highlands.
A photograph seen by the South China Morning Post shows a jail cell with filthy streaks on the walls and a hand drawn sketch of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross.
“No freely available hot water. Washing water is dirty,” Skrzpski wrote in a letter to the Post, adding that he shared the cell with up to four other prisoners, and that he got one meal a day of rice and vegetables.