Charges against students upheld
Charges against students upheld
JAKARTA (JP): Judge Moegihardjo of South Jakarta District Court has rejected the request of the defense lawyers of 12 National University students that he legally annul the prosecutor's indictment. The students are charged with assault and brawling.
"The board of judges have assessed that the indictment made by prosecutor H.P. Silitonga has already fulfilled all requirements stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Code. Therefore there is no reason why the judge should annul it," Moegihardjo said yesterday.
In the previous session lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan of the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation said the indictment of prosecutor Silitonga should be annulled since the police had failed to show the students the required arrest warrants when they were taken into custody.
Luhut is the lawyer who represents six of the 12 students being tried for assault in two separate trials.
The six defendants are Benedictus Satrio Widyanarto, Yahdi Jamhur, Rakai Aria Dipa Erlangga, Darmawan, Budi Murdiyanto and Reza Pahlevi.
The six defendants are among 12 students -- all members of the Association of Nature Lovers (Himpala) -- who are accused of intentionally assaulting four members of the university's student regiment and of burning the regiment's headquarters on Oct. 18 last year.
The alleged attack came after regiment members reportedly destroyed the association's secretariat.
The incident, which gave rise to the two trials, occurred during a celebration of the university's 45th anniversary. Five students were injured in the fighting.
Judge Moegihardjo also decided to continue the court proceedings by examining three witnesses in the next trial on Feb. 14 based on the indictment of prosecutor Silitonga.
According to the prosecutor, the three witnesses will be Bambang Permadi, the National University's Deputy Rector, Furqan Buchari, the university's Students Affairs Dept. Chief, and T.B. Yanuar Sumawinata, the head of the university's Household Affairs.
Shortly after the judge finished reading his decision, two defendants, Yahdi Jamhur and Reza Pahlevi, rose from their seats and told the judge that they would make a statement.
At first judge Moegihardjo refused to allow the defendants to make a replying statement. "You can talk to your lawyers then let them talk to me," the judge said. But he finally decided to allow them to do so.
"I allow you to do so under two conditions, the statement must be delivered only by one of you and the contents must not deviate too far from the contents of my decision," Moegihardjo said.
Yahdi Jamhur, who represents his five other friends, raised an objection to the judge's decision not to annul the prosecutor's indictment.
"Your Honor, we can't understand why we're here because everybody knows that the riot in our campus were involving hundreds of students. But we are wondering why the police and the prosecutor blamed it only on us," Jamhur said.
He ended his statement by saying that he would file an appeal against judge Moegihardjo's decision.
Indonesian law states that a party can file an appeal against the judge's decision if he or she feel that an indictment is not fair enough to be used as the basis of the court examination without stopping the court proceedings.
In the session of the trial for the other six students, Moegihardjo also made the same decision against two teams of defense lawyers.
The first team consists of lawyers from the Indonesian Advocate Association (AAI), who represented Agus Heryana Anirun and Wahyu Sugito. The second is from the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation who represented Syech Al Djufri Abu Bakar, Kusnadi Darisan, Sudrajat Trisna and Indra Mulia Ismet Kamil.
Unlike the first session, the judge directly offered one of the defendants to make their statement on his decision. The offer was then accepted by Syech Al Djufri Abu Bakar, who said the judge's decision was not fair.
"We will file an appeal," said Syech.
The judge then adjourned the trial of the six defendants who were tried in the second session until Feb. 16 to hear the testimonies of the same three witnesses, who will also be examined on Feb. 14. (mas)