Thai charged with heroin deal pleads not guilty<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The lawyer of Sae Lim Iaw, a Thai national
\nbeing tried for drug trafficking in the Central Jakarta District
\nCourt, yesterday asked the judge to dismiss the charges against
\nhis client.<\/p>\n
\"I ask the honorable judge to free Sae Lim Iaw, also known
\nas Boon Tan, from all charges because he was merely a translator
\nwho worked for the drug sellers Freddy A Ting and Tham Tuck Yin,\"
\nlawyer Sjofril Manan said. Sjofril was engaged by Boon Tan eight
\ndays ago to replace his previous defense team.<\/p>\n
In the previous trial session, last month, prosecutor Meity
\nYosef asked Judge R.P. Mangkudiningrat to punish Boon Tan with
\nthe death sentence for his alleged involvement in trafficking 29
\nkilograms of heroin.<\/p>\n
Sjofril said that Boon Tan neither owned the heroin nor
\nbrought it into Indonesia. The lawyer also said his client had
\nbecome involved in the scheme only after meeting Freddy and Tham
\nTuck Yin.<\/p>\n
Sjofril said the real owner of the heroin is a man named
\nThamanoon Saepho, who is still at large<\/p>\n
The lawyer said in his defense statement that Boon Tan had
\nvisited Indonesia on six occasions to survey the coconut and sea
\nfood businesses here. On his third visit, in January last year,
\nhe had been accompanied by Thamanoon Saepho, his business
\npartner.<\/p>\n
Lawyer Sjofril said that on his fifth visit to the country,
\nwhich was for the same purpose, Boon Tan met Tham Tuck Yin, one
\nof Thamanoon Saepho's assistants.<\/p>\n
During his sixth visit, Thamanoon Saepho asked him to act as
\ntranslator for Tham in a business meeting at Hotel Indonesia on
\nMay 11, 1994.<\/p>\n
The man was A Hong who, according to the Merdeka daily,
\nturned out to be an undercover Interpol officer.<\/p>\n
Boon Tan went to the hotel with Tham and Freddy and held a
\nmeeting with A Hong in room 433.<\/p>\n
According to the prosecutor's statement, the discussion
\noccurred between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., during which time A Hong
\ntested the quality of the heroin by putting a little scoop of the
\ndrug into a glass of water.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors Meity Yosef and Suriansyah have stated that Boon
\nTan knew what was transpiring and was involved in the heroin
\ntransaction since he was the translator during the negotiations.<\/p>\n
However, lawyer Sjofril said that Boon Tan should not be
\nheld to have been involved in the deal because he had simply
\ncomplied with Thamanoon Saepho's request that be the translator
\nin a business transaction that he knew nothing about.<\/p>\n
\"He was not involved in this case because he was not the
\nowner of the heroin and he was not the one who brought it into
\nthe country. He was merely a paid translator who also wanted to
\ndo coconut and seafood business in this country,\" Sjofril
\nreiterated.<\/p>\n
The heroin was allegedly brought into the country in
\nJanuary, 1994 from Thailand via Medan, North Sumatra, by Than
\nTuck Yin, also known as A Tjai, a Malaysian. He said Thamanoon
\nSaepho, a Thai, had ordered him to transport the heroin.<\/p>\n
A Tjai brought the heroin to Jakarta from Medan by bus. He
\nlater took the heroin to Freddy's house at Jl. Patriot 29 in
\nBekasi. It was kept there until May 11, 1994, when A Tjai, Boon
\nTan and Freddy carried three of the 60 packages of high-grade
\nheroin to Hotel Indonesia to show it to A Hong. It was there, on
\nthe same day, that police seized the drugs and arrested the three
\nmen.<\/p>\n
The remaining 57 packages of heroin were subsequently
\ndiscovered at Freddy's house.<\/p>\n
The drug raid was the biggest heroin bust in Indonesian
\nhistory. The second largest drug haul was recorded seven years
\nearlier in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, when the police seized
\n17.7 kilograms of heroin of a similar grade.<\/p>\n
Meity Yosef, the prosecutor in Boon Tan's trial, and R.A.
\nArgasasmita, who is prosecuting A Tjai, requested that the judge
\npunish the two defendants with death sentences last month. (mas)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/thai-charged-with-heroin-deal-pleads-not-guilty-1447893297",
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