Disabled policeman wins aid promise with strike<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): City police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman
\nhas promised to help a retired, disabled police office who went
\non a hunger strike to demand that the National Police pay him
\ncompensation for injuries sustained in the line of duty.<\/p>\n
The paralyzed first Sgt. (ret) Mamat Soehermat, 49, started
\nhis hunger strike at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute in Central
\nJakarta on Friday.<\/p>\n
Mamat, accompanied by his wife Mila Karmila and several
\nlawyers from the Commission on Missing Persons and Victims of
\nViolence (Kontras), met Noegroho for less than 45 minutes on
\nWednesday.<\/p>\n
"This man was once a policeman and he was even reportedly sent
\nto East Timor, so it is my duty as a fellow policeman to help
\nhim," Noegroho told reporters after the brief meeting.<\/p>\n
Besides acting for humanitarian reasons, Noegroho also said he
\ndid not want Mamat to be used by irresponsible parties who could
\ntake advantage of his situation.<\/p>\n
"Anything can be made into a political issue now, I just don't
\nwhat this disabled man used," he said without elaboration.<\/p>\n
He said the case would be reported to National Police chief
\nGen. Roesmanhadi for further consideration in an effort to
\nprevent other officers from the same ill-treatment.<\/p>\n
Kopassus again<\/p>\n
Mamat, a father of six children, was left paralyzed along his
\nright side after he was stabbed by four members of the Army's
\nSpecial Force (Kopassus) in Serang, Banten, West Java, in
\nFebruary 1996.<\/p>\n
"Pak Noegroho is a good man, today he guaranteed all medical
\ncosts for my surgery and has also promised to help my family,"
\nMamat said, adding that the two-star general also promised to
\nhelp fix his house.<\/p>\n
After the meeting, Mamat was put into a police ambulance and
\ntaken to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta
\nto undergo surgery. His entourage accompanied him.<\/p>\n
Mamat's ordeal began two months ago when he and his colleagues
\napprehended four Kopassus officers who had allegedly assaulted a
\npolice officer in a prostitution complex in Serang in December
\n1995.<\/p>\n
Mamat was assigned by the Banten Police chief of detectives
\nto search for the Kopassus officers in the complex.<\/p>\n
Along with his colleagues, he arrested four of the soldiers,
\none of whom was identified as Mustofa, and found an FN gun in one
\nof the brothel's rooms.<\/p>\n
The red-beret officers, released shortly after their arrest,
\nstopped Mamat and his colleagues, who were riding motorcycles one
\nafternoon in an area near the Merak bus terminal.<\/p>\n
The officers allegedly attacked Mamat and stabbed him in the
\nback of his neck and chest. There was no details about the fate
\nof his colleagues.<\/p>\n
The soldiers, Mamat said recently, left him to die of his
\ninjuries.<\/p>\n
Mamat reportedly gave an account of the assault at the local
\npolice station, but says he never heard whether the case had been
\ninvestigated.<\/p>\n
He was later informed that the then Banten Police chief, Col.
\nBanurusman, closed the case for unspecified reasons. (emf)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/disabled-policeman-wins-aid-promise-with-strike-1447893297",
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