Clemency granted to political prisoners

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)