Dossiers on Bintang case submitted to prosecutors<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Police have completed their investigation on
\nformer legislator Sri Bintang Pamungkas, concerning his alleged
\ncritical remarks of President Soeharto in a seminar in Germany
\nlast April.<\/p>\n
They submitted the dossiers to the Jakarta High Prosecutor's
\nOffice so that they can proceed with legal prosecution.<\/p>\n
\"We have finished with the dossiers and the material evidence.
\nNow it's up to the court to handle his case,\" M. Adenan Kasian,
\ndeputy chief prosecutor for general crimes of the Jakarta High
\nProsecutor's Office, said yesterday.<\/p>\n
He told reporters that he would hand over the dossiers and the
\nsuspect to the Central Jakarta District Court, to enable them to
\nproceed with the trial by the end of the month.<\/p>\n
The prosecutors office has named P. Sitindjak as chief
\nprosecutor for the trial and J. Kamaru and Suriansyah as
\nassistants, he added.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, prosecutors spent one hour checking the dossiers
\nfiled by the police. It was delayed for about 15 minutes when
\nBintang and the prosecutors quarreled over the verification
\nprocedures.<\/p>\n
Bintang was accompanied by lawyers from the Indonesian Legal
\nAid Institute: Adnan Buyung Nasution, Soekardjo Adidjojo, Mohamad
\nAssegaf, and R. Dwiyanto Prihartono. While the police
\ninvestigators was represented by Capt. Tugino of National Police
\nHeadquarters.<\/p>\n
Bintang, who is also a lecturer at the University of
\nIndonesia, has been accused of discrediting the government at a
\nseminar in Germany in April, which was held almost the same time
\nas President Soeharto's official visit to the country.<\/p>\n
He has also been linked to a series of anti-Indonesian
\ngovernment demonstrations in Germany during the President's
\nvisit.<\/p>\n
Bintang has denied the accusations, saying that he was a
\ncurious, innocent bystander during the protest in Hanover, one of
\nthe German cities visited by Soeharto. Bintang was in Germany to
\ntake part in a number of speaking engagements.<\/p>\n
He also rejected the accusations that his criticism of the
\ngovernment amounted to defamation. \"Does it mean I slander and
\ndegrade the government if I criticized the government in my
\nspeeches,\" he has repeatedly told reporters during previous
\ninvestigation sessions.<\/p>\n
The outspoken politician was removed from the House of
\nRepresentatives by his own faction, the United Development Party,
\nin May, for allegedly going against the party's policies and for
\noffending a number of cabinet ministers.<\/p>\n
The material evidence submitted by the police consists of
\nevidence handed over by Indonesian students who attended the
\nseminar and witnessed the demonstrations. It consists of
\nphotographs of the seminar and the demonstrations, samples of the
\nstudents' hand writing, four recorded cassettes of the seminar, a
\ntape recorder and four samples of the leaflets distributed in the
\ndemonstrations.<\/p>\n
Bintang is currently fighting a lawsuit in the Jakarta State
\nAdministrative Court against the government, who also slapped an
\noverseas travel ban on him in May, although he was not formally
\ncharged yet.<\/p>\n
Following the travel ban imposed on him, he could not attend
\nhis daughter's graduation ceremony in the United States last May.<\/p>\n
The Court approved on Tuesday his lawsuit, which means that
\nthe lawsuit has passed the dismissal process and the court could
\nproceed with the trial.(imn)<\/p>",
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