Clemency granted to political prisoners

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto has granted clemency to three political prisoners linked with the abortive 1965 communist coup, the government announced yesterday.

Under the clemency, Soebandrio, Omar Dhani and Raden Soegeng Soetarto will go free on Aug. 15, just two days before Indonesia marks its 50th Independence Day.

Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono, who made the announcement at his office, told reporters that the President took various humanitarian and political questions into consideration before granting the requests for clemency, which were submitted by the wives of the three convicts.

"The clemency granted by the President to the convicts reduced their sentences from life imprisonment to temporary jail terms until Aug. 15," he said. "They will be free after Aug. 15."

Granting convicts clemency is the constitutional prerogative of the president.

The presidential decrees for the clemency of the three were signed on June 2, before the military and some senior politicians warned that releasing political prisoners convicted for the 1965 coup would raise the specter of a communist revival.

Moerdiono said the President had been considering the issue since the first requests for clemency came to him two years ago. "Hence we can see that the President needed quite a long time before reaching his decision.

"The decision required careful thinking," Moerdiono said.

"There is the legal aspect, because the President is bound by the laws and the Constitution.

"There is the political aspect because the three had roles that led to the national tragedy in the G30S/PKI rebellion in 1965.

"There is also the humanitarian aspect because the three convicts are already aged," Moerdiono explained.

"From a humanitarian perspective, the President also took into consideration the reports that while serving their term, the three convicts showed changes in attitude and conduct.

"Soetarto's health, for example, has been deteriorating.

"So taking humanitarian aspects into consideration, hopefully they (the convicts) can spend the rest of their lives with their families," Moerdiono said.

Soebandrio, 81, is a former deputy prime minister; Omar Dhani, 71, is an air marshal and former air force chief of staff; and Soetarto, 77, is a police general who served in the Center for Intelligence Agency. All were convicted for their roles in the Sept. 30, 1965 putsch that has been blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). G30S/PKI has since been used as the official shorthand to refer to the putsch. The PKI was outlawed in 1966.

The three men were originally convicted to death for their parts in the coup against then President Sukarno. In the early 1980s, President Soeharto granted them clemency, commuting their sentences to life imprisonment.

Soebandrio and Omar Dhani are currently in a special high security block at the Cipinang correctional institution in East Jakarta. Soetarto has been a patient at the St. Carolus private hospital since May 1994, suffering from severe depression.

Moerdiono said that the requests for clemency came from their wives, "with the consent" of their husbands.

The clemency was only given with regard to the court's sentence, and not for the crime they committed.

"So even if we have commuted their sentences, and they are free, this does not erase the errors they committed. This has to be widely understood by the people."

The suggestions that the government release political prisoners in a gesture of reconciliation and as part of the country's golden anniversary first surfaced early this year.

In May, the government disclosed that three political prisoners had applied for clemency: Soebandrio, Omar Dhani and A. Latief, an Army officer who was also involved in the putsch.

Asked about the fate of Latief, Moerdiono simply answered that clemency is the full prerogative of the President.

"I could add that Soebandrio, Omar Dhani and Soetarto were not PKI.

"The court trying them was clear on their crime," Moerdiono said, citing the court record which stated that: "They were considered to have attempted or tried to facilitate others, an endeavor and opportunity to rebel with the intention of toppling the legal government."

Responding to a question, Moerdiono affirmed that 10 other political prisoners had applied for clemency. They were Maliki bin Haji Yusuf, Raden Sembodo, Soedono, Ahmad Dahlan Gani, Ulung Sitepu, Johan Rivai, Usep Rashidi, Sugeng Sugiarto, Sudirman and Markus Murad.

Asked if the prison conduct of the three clemency recipients was sufficient an indication that they will not indulge in political activities, Moerdiono said: "We all hope so." (emb)