AG defends review appeal

Antara, Padang, West Sumatra

Attorney General M.A. Rachman hinted on Saturday that irregularities had been found in the Supreme Court's decision to nullify an earlier ruling that sentenced Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra to 18 months in prison.

"Many legal arguments (provided by the Supreme Court in its decision) were untrue. Therefore, we have the obligation to clarify the case and file a counterappeal on the Supreme Court's decision," Rachman said as quoted by Antara on the sidelines of the installment ceremony for the new West Sumatra Provincial Prosecutor's Office chief in Padang, West Sumatra.

In a hearing presided over by Justice M. Taufik last Monday, the panel of justices ruled in favor of Tommy on the grounds that the youngest son of former president Soeharto had quit his position as president commissioner of wholesale firm PT Goro Batara Sakti before it struck a land swap deal with the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) in 1996.

Initially, the South Jakarta District Court ruled that Tommy was not guilty, but the Jakarta High Court overturned the lower court's verdict and sentenced him to 18 months in prison. The Supreme Court in September last year upheld the High Court's verdict.

But the Supreme Court last Monday, with a different panel of justices, overruled the verdict after Tommy's lawyers requested a review of its September 2000 verdict.

Rachman said the Attorney General's Office respected the Supreme Court's Monday decision, but had the obligation to clarify the case.

"We have to straighten out incorrect things. Therefore, we have also filed an appeal for a review of the Supreme Court's decision," he said.

He cited the Supreme Court's argument that it had found novum (new evidence).

"There is no such novum. All the evidence was submitted when the prosecutors filed an appeal with the Jakarta High Court," he said.

Rachman claimed that the assertion that Tommy had quit his post as president commissioner of PT Goro Batara Sakti before the deal was signed was not true.

"It's not true. He (Tommy) was the guarantor for the loan (of PT Goro Batara) from Bank Bukopin," he said.

The attorney general said that there was no regulation that prohibited his office from filing a counterappeal to the Supreme Court's decision.

In response to Rachman's plan, two prominent legal experts -- Jimly Asshidiqqie and J.E. Sahetapy -- underlined the importance of establishing an independent fact-finding team to be in charge of reviewing the Supreme Court's verdict.

Jimly, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia, said that the team could be in the form of a special committee at the House of Representatives, which is authorized to question law officials.

"The team has to question the prosecutors, justices and the police who were involved in handling the case from the beginning," Jimly told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Asked whether the attorney general had the right to file another review of the verdict, Jimly said that it could be done whenever new evidence was found.

Sahetapy, a lecturer at Airlangga University Surabaya, shared Jimly's remarks, saying that such a team was needed to reverse the legal procedure taken by the panel of judges to release Tommy.

"If the team can reveal that the justices' procedure was wrong, all of them will have to resign," Sahetapy told the Post, referring to the three panel justices -- Soeharto (no relation to former president Soeharto), M. Taufiq and Geerman Hoediarto.

Sahetapy said that based on Article 1 of the law on judicial power, a judge must rely on the law and judicial precedent to issue a verdict.

He said that the three justices had used the incorrect legal code. "They used the civil code for the case that should have been reviewed under the criminal code," Sahetapy said.