Cop killer gets 16 years

JAKARTA (JP): A 23-year-old student of the Jakarta-based Jayabaya University was sentenced to 16 years in jail yesterday by the East Jakarta district court for his role in the brutal murder of Police Sgt. Bambang Sumarno.

"Evidence and witnesses proved conclusively that defendant Iman Alamin took part in the murder and later kept the victim's gun as well as its ammunition," presiding judge I Gede Ketut Sukarata said while reading his verdict.

The convicted man closed his eyes and tried to remain calm while the judge announced the sentence.

Prosecutor B. Gultom had earlier demanded the court sentence Alamin, whom the he labeled the mastermind of the killing, to 18 years.

The court, however, found that Alamin did not mastermind the brutal slaying which occurred at an empty house in the Kayu Putih area. The house belongs to Alamin's parents.

But all evidence, including the lethal 22-centimeter-long knife and the victim's pistol, was found at Alamin's residence.

The judges said that Alamin had broken the law by housing unlicensed guns and blades.

The defendant's lawyer, Sawir Achmad, told the court that he will appeal to a higher court.

"Alamin knew nothing about the killing. He himself was shocked when he returned to the living room and found the sergeant dead," Sawir told reporters on the courthouse steps.

Prosecutor Gultom had earlier told the court that Alamin ordered his two cronies, Boy Herowantana and Arnold Mamusung, both currently facing separate trials in the same case, to drug and then kill the victim in the wee hours of Aug. 26, 1993.

According to the prosecutor, Alamin masterminded the killing because he wanted to posses the sergeant's gun.

Alamin initially asked the police to check his house. He told sergeant Bambang Sumarno that the house had been frequently burglarized.

During the five-month trial, Alamin had repeatedly denied his written testimony that he masterminded the killing, saying that dozens of police officers extracted the confession from him by torture.

According to Alamin's version, Bambang visited the house and spoke with him about the security problem, a discussion which later escalated into a quarrel.

Alamin said that he never asked his two colleagues to seize the policeman's gun, much less kill the man.

Meanwhile, two friends of Alamin, who were both highly intoxicated, entered the living room, brawled with Bambang and stabbed the police officer to death while Alamin was out of the house buying cigarettes.

Afterwards, the three young thugs cleaned the living room, burned the policeman's body and dumped it in a rubber plantation in Cianjur, West Java.

"I need to take some time to think about this," Alamin told the court when he was asked whether he objected to the verdict. (09)