Bintang vows to defy police summons for questioning

Bintang vows to defy police summons for questioning

JAKARTA (JP): Legislator Sri Bintang Pamungkas vowed yesterday to defy a police summons for questioning as a suspect in the recent anti-Indonesian government demonstration in Germany.

"I won't bother to heed the summons," he said in a statement made available on the weekend.

The legislator is facing dismissal by his United Development Party (PPP). He said he was summoned on Friday to appear for questioning on May 11 as a suspect in the demonstration.

He said the police are attempting to make him confess to their suspicion that he "endangered President Soeharto's security and insulted the head of state" during the demonstration.

Bintang said he knew that the police will charge him with insulting the President, subversion with the aim of killing the President, physically attacking the President and sowing hatred of the head of state.

Authorities have accused Bintang of involvement in the demonstrations in Germany, including one in Dresden when the protesters got close to the President and his entourage.

Bintang said he would ignore the summons if the police continue to spurn his request to see copies of police reports used as a basis for the interrogation and President Soeharto's letter approving his questioning while still a legislator.

He also wants to see the police letter used by the attorney general as grounds for putting him onto a list of Indonesians banned from leaving the country.

The Moslem-oriented PPP is in the process of withdrawing Bintang from the House of Representatives. Party executives have said that Bintang had repeatedly breached party discipline and offended several ministers. (swe)