Third Death At Freeport Indonesia Mine - Police

TIMIKA, Indonesia (AFP)--An Indonesian policeman who fled an ambush near U.S. company Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.'s (FCX) giant mine in Papua was found dead Monday, bringing the death toll from a string of attacks to three, police said.

The body of Marsom Patipulohi was pulled from a ravine near the road to the company's Grasberg gold and copper mine with apparent stab wounds, said a policeman who declined to be named.

The body was found about 20 kilometers from the site where 29-year-old Australian Freeport technician Drew Nicholas Grant was killed Saturday, and a Freeport guard was killed in a firefight Sunday, he said.

The policeman was apparently abducted and killed after running away from the Sunday attack, he said.

"I saw stab wounds to his neck," the police officer said.

National police spokesman Sulistyo Ishak confirmed an officer had been found dead, but gave no further details.

"A body has been found but we're still getting information on the ground. Some say he was shot, others say he fell, so we're still investigating," he said.

Indonesia has sent investigators and elite counter-terror police to guard the mine area after the shootings, which have echoes of a 2002 attack in which two U.S. schoolteachers and an Indonesian colleague were killed.

Police have said military or police-issue weapons were used in the attacks, but they haven't indicated who they believe is responsible.

Papua is the scene of a long-running separatist insurgency by poorly armed local guerrillas, who have reportedly denied responsibility for killing the Australian.

The Grasberg mine sits on the world's largest gold and copper reserves, and is a lightning rod for discontent over rule from Jakarta, which took control of the eastern region in 1969 in a U.N.-backed vote widely seen as rigged.