Pilot gets 15 months for smuggling drugs<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): A Garuda Indonesia Airways pilot, Mohammad Said,
\nwas sentenced to 15 months in jail Wednesday by a Dutch court for
\nattempting to smuggle 6,000 Ecstasy pills to Jakarta.<\/p>\n
A team of judges headed by A. Van der Perk in Amsterdam
\nDistrict Court handed down the sentence without the 50-year-old
\npilot being present.<\/p>\n
The senior pilot was found guilty of an attempt to smuggle.
\nThe prosecutors' charge that Said, arrested on June 29 last year
\nat the Schippol Airport, worked for an international drug
\nsyndicate was unsubstantiated, Antara reported.<\/p>\n
Said's lawyers said they would appeal to the Amsterdam High
\nCourt on the grounds that judges had denied Said's right to have
\na star witness, called Informant 1500, testify.<\/p>\n
Informant 1500 was the one who gave information to police that
\nled to Said's arrest. The lawyers said if the informant was
\nsummoned, they would have been able to disprove the charges.<\/p>\n
They said Said, who was released from detention on June 29
\nafter his nine-month maximum temporary detention period was over,
\ndid not attend Wednesday's sentencing in protest of the trial's
\n\"unfairness\".<\/p>\n
Said's lawyer O.C. Kaligis said Wednesday that he lodged a
\nprotest on Judge Van der Perk's \"unfairness\" with the European
\nCourt in Strasbourg, France.<\/p>\n
Kaligis said a defendant's right to have star witnesses
\ntestify was a basic right guaranteed by the 1950 Rome Convention
\non protection of defendants' rights.<\/p>\n
\"The fact that the Amsterdam court chose to shelter Informant
\n1500 shows that the convention was violated,\" Kaligis said.<\/p>\n
Another of Said's lawyers, Nicolaas Meijering, said he had
\ninformation that Informant 1500 was in fact a criminal who was
\nonce jailed for seven years.<\/p>\n
The Amsterdam District Court gave Said six months' leniency,
\nwhich automatically means Said will not have to serve time in
\nprison because he was already in detention for nine months.<\/p>\n
\"For us, however, the case isn't over yet. We insist that
\nInformant 1500 be summoned to testify in court,\" lawyer Meijering
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Meijering said that although his team successfully proved that
\nSaid was not involved with any drug syndicate, they still believe
\ntheir client was a \"victim of Amsterdam Police political play.\"<\/p>\n
Meijering also said judging from the verdict, Amsterdam
\nPolice should immediately apologize to both the Indonesian
\ngovernment and the Indonesian Embassy in the Netherlands for
\nearlier charging that a staff member of the embassy was involved
\nin the Ecstasy trafficking. (aan)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/pilot-gets-15-months-for-smuggling-drugs-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}