Ba'asyir refuses temporary release
Ba'asyir refuses temporary release
P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir refused on Monday to allow his
team of lawyers to file a temporary release motion on
humanitarian grounds because this would mean begging for leniency
from the United States.
"Ustadz asked us to cancel our plan, saying that his detention
was due partially to U.S. intervention," said M. Luthfie Hakim
after visiting Ba'asyir at the National Police Headquarters on
Monday.
Luthfie said that according to Article 31 of the Criminal Code
Procedures, a lawyer cannot submit such a request without
permission from the client or his family.
He added that the team had planned to make the request to have
Ba'asyir released because, he said, it was inhumane of the police
not to give the cleric a chance to experience even a brief period
of freedom before rearresting him shortly after he finished
serving an 18-month prison term for immigration violations and
document forgery on April 30.
However, Ba'asyir objected to being released temporarily and
the team resolved to returning to their initial strategy of
giving the police one week to release the cleric from detention.
"We demand the National Police chief release Abu Bakar
Ba'asyir unconditionally, as also requested by Islamic leaders
throughout the country and politicians within the legislature,"
said Luthfie.
The lawyers said that if the police exceeded the one-week
period, they would file a pretrial motion against the National
Police on the basis of Article 79 of the Criminal Law Procedures
Code.
The article states that a suspect, or his family, or his
lawyer can file a motion with the district court to review the
validity of an arrest or detention, stating the reasons for the
review.
" The police don't have sufficient initial evidence to arrest
Ustadz Ba'asyir on terrorism charges. They will have to show us
(the evidence) to prove it," said Luthfie.
The lawyers claimed that they had already cross-checked with
district courts throughout the city and discovered that the
police had not yet verified their intelligence-based evidence
with the courts.
"I already checked with the South Jakarta District Court. They
said the police had not yet made any verification on such
intelligence-based evidence used to arrest the cleric," said A.
Wirawan Adnan, a member of Ba'asyir's team of lawyers.
Director VI of the Antiterror and Bomb Division at the
National Police Headquarters Brig. Gen. Pranowo previously said
that the police were ready to face any pretrial motion made by
Ba'asyir's lawyers.
In response to the request to show initial evidence used to
charge the cleric, Pranowo said that they would present the
evidence during the trial.
The lawyers have been planning the pretrial motion for a week.
They previously stated their plan last week upon procedural
violations in connection with their client's arrest.
Head of Ba'asyir team of lawyers Mohammad Assegaff said the
police had not served the arrest warrant on their client until he
had been taken into custody and placed in a police van.