Court jails five over Gambir riot

JAKARTA (JP): Five more supporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the ousted leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), were jailed yesterday for their part in the Gambir riot last June.

The Central Jakarta District Court sentenced Herman Susilo, Edy Suwito, and Rajim to seven months jail, Sutrisno for six months, and Fauzan Nanang Prasetya for five months and 17 days.

The jail terms matched the time they had been detained so they were freed.

Defense lawyers said they would appeal to the Jakarta High Court.

The defendants were PDI activists involved in a rally near Gambir railway station supporting Megawati who was being deposed as PDI chairwoman at a government-backed congress in Medan.

The jail terms provoked uproar among the spectators, many of whom stepped forward to hug the defendants. The defendants and their sympathizers cried.

Megawati loyalists, who packed the court, shouted: "Where is justice?" and "The trial was engineered."

Repeating their reaction to the sentencing of 115 Megawati loyalists on Nov. 27, the defense lawyers said the verdicts were unfair because the judges did not consider defense witnesses' statements.

"They only based their verdict on the police witnesses' testimony," defense lawyer Pantas Nainggolan said.

Petrus Salestinus, another defense lawyer on the team which calls itself The Public Defender for Indonesian Democracy, said: "It is a bad precedent for Indonesia's judicial system."

On Nov. 27, 115 Megawati supporters were sentenced to four months and three days jail, equal to the time they had been detained, for ignoring a police order while they were defending the PDI headquarters from a take over by supporters of Soerjadi, the officially recognized PDI chairman. (05)