<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">When two police officers involved in the Kanjuruhan Stadium crush walked free from a Surabaya courtroom two months ago, Indonesians were outraged.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Families of the 135 people who died when police fired tear gas at supporters at the end of a football match in the city of Malang in East Java last October had hoped those on the field would be held accountable for the decisions they made that night, especially after an official report concluded: “Tear gas was the main cause of deaths, injuries and trauma in the Kanjuruhan humanitarian tragedy.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) report, which was commissioned by the government and released in November, argued there were two ways in which the tear gas probably killed those inside the stadium.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Firstly, the gas killed victims directly because it built up in the stairwell and tunnel leading to the exit at Gate 13 where many died as they struggled to escape. It noted this would need to be confirmed by autopsy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Secondly, the gas killed indirectly, because it left people with burning eyes, scalding skin and breathing difficulties that added to the chaos as fans scrambled desperately for the exits and were crushed and trampled in the melee.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But as Judge Abu Achmad Sidqi Amsya read his verdict in the Surabaya District Court in April, he said the tear gas had not travelled as far as the seating areas – known as tribunes – where the majority of the spectators had been seated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“[…] the smoke produced by the tear gas was blown by the wind to the south towards the middle of the field,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“And when the smoke reached the sidelines, the wind blew it upwards and it never reached the south stands,” he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite Judge Amsya’s verdict and his assertion that no tear gas was fired directly into the tribunes or at spectators, multiple witnesses who were in Kanjuruhan told Al Jazeera that the gas did indeed reach the south stands and suffocated spectators in the 13th and 14th tribunes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, with two more civil cases against the police looming in the city of Malang, the debate over whether spectators died after panicking and getting caught in the crush or by direct suffocation has become increasingly important to the legal arguments over who was responsible for the tragedy. Aljazeera</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>