Bintang wants new chief prosecutor
JAKARTA (JP): Dissident politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas, under investigation for allegedly disseminating antigovernment messages, fought back from his cell at the Attorney General's Office yesterday by demanding an investigating prosecutor be dismissed.
Bintang's lawyer, Bambang Widjojanto, said Bintang wanted the head of the Attorney General's investigating team, Mulyono, replaced because he "had been involved in a recent case of alleged collusion and corruption in the Attorney General's Office".
Bintang had sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes Ismudjoko demanding that Mulyono be replaced, according to Bambang.
Bintang has also declared that, as a (self-proclaimed) presidential candidate, he refused to be questioned by a prosecutor he alleged was involved in "something dishonorable."
Last year, Bintang established the Indonesian Democratic Union Party (PUDI), which the government has refused to recognize, and announced his intention to run for the presidency next year. He named PUDI activist Julius Usman as his vice presidential nominee.
The dishonorable act he referred to was the alleged swindling at the privately run Bapindo of interest worth billions of rupiah from the confiscated properties of the notorious jailbird Eddy Tansil.
The latest edition of Forum Keadilan magazine reported that the scam allegedly involved a number of officials at the Attorney General's Office, including former Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes Yunan Sawidji, whom Ismudjoko replaced on Feb. 28.
Bintang, a former United Development Party legislator, was arrested last Wednesday on charges of subversion. He, Julius, and another PUDI executive Saleh Abdullah, have been detained and are currently being questioned about the party's allegedly subversive activities.
One of the activities the government found offensive was the sending of Idul Fitri greeting cards including the PUDI agenda: namely to boycott the 1997 election, to reject President Soeharto's renomination for another term of office, and to prepare for a post-Soeharto era after 1998. The cards were sent to many officials, including Vice President Try Sutrisno.
According to Bambang, his client refused to answer questions posed by the three-member prosecution team and demanded that the "substance" of the case being built be explained to him first.
"Bintang insists that unless his demands, supposedly his rights guaranteed by law, be properly addressed by the prosecutors, he will not answer any questions directed at him," Bambang said. He referred to Article 51 of the Criminal Code Procedures which stipulates that investigators must explain clearly to a person the charges being built against him or her.
In earlier questioning sessions Bintang had demanded that the investigators explain the legal grounds of his arrest; such as the crime he was being charged with, what had incriminated him, and how that related to the law he was being charged with.
He demanded that the investigating prosecutors produce a copy of letters of complaint from those who were supposedly irritated by his party's activities, reveal who had reported him to the authorities, who he had allegedly offended, and what suffering his party had inflicted on the offended people.
"Bintang was asked 23 questions today, but he refused to answer the last four questions," Bambang said. One of those was whether Bintang needed a lawyer.
According to Bambang, Bintang refused to continue with the questioning when the investigators tried to elicit his statements on PUDI, its activities and programs, and its controversial Idul Fitri cards.
A political analyst from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Riswandha Imawan, said that by sending the cards, Bintang had made himself a martyr and a symbol for a new social movement. (aan/har)