US mining giant Newmont voiced confidence Friday it would win a controversial pollution trial next week, saying claims the company and one of its executives poisoned an Indonesian bay were baseless.
Newmont executive Richard Ness said the prosecution's case against him and the Indonesian unit of the company had been "torn apart" during the 20-month trial closely watched by foreign investors.
An Indonesian court is expected to rule Tuesday on whether Newmont and Ness polluted Buyat Bay in northern Sulawesi with arsenic and mercury from its now defunct gold mine on the island. They are also accused of sickening villagers and killing marine life around Manado where the mine was sited, around 2,300 kilometres (1,400 miles) northeast of Jakarta.
Ness, who heads PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, the Indonesian subsidiary of the Denver-based company, faces three years in prison if convicted while the company would receive a fine.
"When you look through this whole trial process, starting with the prosecution's witnesses, I think almost every one of them failed to be convincing or their testimony was torn apart by our lawyers," Ness said. "Our lawyers then systematically proved ... that the bay was not polluted, that the water was fine that the fish were fine," he told reporters.
The highly charged case against Newmont, the world's largest gold miner, has pitted environmentalists against mining firms, and the verdict could impact on foreign investment which Indonesia needs to fuel its economy.
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