Serious action warranted<\/p>\n
The fatal shooting on Thursday morning of Justice M.
\nSyafiuddin Kartasasmita, a junior judge for general crimes at the
\nSupreme Court, has spread ripples of terror and alarm throughout
\nthe community. Obviously designed to intimidate law enforcing
\nofficers into practicing greater leniency in passing out justice,
\nThursday's assassination was an incident that the authorities are
\nadvised to take most seriously, in order to prevent a serious
\nsetback to our current reform efforts.<\/p>\n
Thursday's assassination of Justice Syafiuddin was a high-
\nprofile incident of the first order for a number of reasons. He
\nwas the judge who, in September last year, sentenced former
\npresident Soeharto's youngest son, Hutomo \"Tommy\" Mandala Putra
\nto 18 months in jail and fined him Rp 30.7 billion (US$3 million)
\non charges of corruption during the course of Soeharto's 32-year
\ndictatorial rule over the New Order regime. Tommy has since
\nescaped justice and remains a fugitive despite a police manhunt
\nthat has lasted many months. It was also Justice Syafiuddin who
\nsentenced Soeharto's golfing buddy Mohamad \"Bob\" Hasan to six
\nyears in jail earlier this year for corruption committed during
\nthe same period.<\/p>\n
The murder itself was done with all the trappings of the New
\nYork mafia. Eyewitnesses said they saw four men on two
\nmotorcycles forcing the Honda CVR, which Syafiuddin was driving,
\nto stop on Jl. Serdang, Kemayoran, in Central Jakarta. The time
\nwas about 8:30 a.m. One of the men stepped down from his
\nmotorcycle and calmly approached the judge's car from the right
\nand shot his victim twice in the head through the closed window.
\nAnother man fired at his chest from the left side of the car. The
\nshooting also took another victim as the justice's car careened
\nand hit a cigarette stall and a roadside barber, seriously
\ninjuring the cigarette vendor. The four assailants immediately
\nfled the scene of the crime, leaving the eyewitnesses little time
\nto take a closer look at them.<\/p>\n
So far, no progress has been reported in the police
\ninvestigation of the crime, although Senior Comr. Adang Rochyana,
\nthe chief of detectives at Jakarta Police Headquarters, said
\npolice were investigating whether the shooting had anything to do
\nwith Tommy Soeharto's case. To his colleagues, Syafiuddin was
\nknown as a man of integrity, committed to eradicating corruption,
\nknown to be rampant in Indonesia's legal institutions, going as
\nhigh as the Supreme Court itself.<\/p>\n
Syafiuddin is reported to have complained to his colleagues
\nthat he was often approached by people with offers of bribes, the
\nlast time being on Tuesday, when Syafiuddin told one of his
\ncolleagues there were people offering him Rp 20 billion in
\nexchange for letting Bob Hasan win his appeal. Another offer had
\ncome from people reportedly linked to Pande Lubis, who was
\nsuspect in the Bank Bali corruption case.<\/p>\n
While there are still many judges with integrity left in this
\ncountry's legal profession, these judges consider threats to
\ntheir lives an inescapable risk of their profession. Clearly,
\neffective measures must be taken against such intimidation
\nwithout delay to protect judges and other professionals working
\nfor the cause of justice.<\/p>\n
The effective upholding of the law and justice is one of the
\nmajor pillars on which any society rests. To treat such Mafia-
\nstyle attacks against our law enforcers as commonplace incidents
\nis to turn all our efforts to build a civil society based on the
\nrule of the law into a joke. Serious action must be taken,
\nwithout delay.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/serious-action-warranted-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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