Australian money 'used for beatings' in Indonesia

Australia has sent an official to the Indonesian province of Maluku to investigate claims that

Indonesia's elite counter-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, which receives millions of dollars from Australia each year, brutalised a group of separatists last month, repeatedly beating them in detention.

Fairfax newspapers say it's emerged that in May 2008 the United States secretly banned some members of Detachment 88 in Maluku from receiving its assistance.

Fairfax says it's learnt that the Australian government is "aware and concerned" about the activities of the Detachment 88 officers, dispatching an official two weeks ago to Ambon, Maluku's capital, to investigate the claims.

An investigation by Fairfax has revealed that about 12 activists were arrested in August and taken to a Detachment 88 office in Ambon, where they say they were subject to brutal mistreatment.

The arrests occurred after police and intelligence officers foiled a plan to fly dozens of banned flags and other political material attached to helium-filled balloons over Ambon when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and foreign guests were in the city.

Seven of the prisoners smuggled out recorded statements, while another was interviewed by Fairfax while recuperating from a fractured hip, handcuffed to his bed in an Ambon hospital.

All said they were blindfolded and then hit around the head and body by the police officers during interrogation, sometimes with wooden sticks and bars or while forced to hold painful stress positions.

Police allegedly jumped on the prisoners, burnt them with cigarettes, pierced them with nails and brought them to the point of suffocation when plastic bags were placed over their heads.

"The Australian government is aware of, and concerned by, the allegations of brutality towards political prisoners," a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said. "We will continue to monitor the situation and make representations as necessary."