Court, 'SCTV' agree on videoconference

JAKARTA: The South Jakarta District Court and private television station SCTV signed an agreement on Thursday on a videoconference to take place on July 2 to hear former president B.J. Habibie's testimony in the case against former chief of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) Rahardi Ramelan.

The court will possess the original recording of the hearing while SCTV will have its own copy and will have exclusive rights to air the hearing, the agreement said. Court chief Lalu Mariyun and SCTV news director Karni Ilyas signed the agreement.

"SCTV has not intervened in the court. The videoconference is aimed at broadcasting Habibie's testimony to the public so the hearing will be transparent and objective," Lalu told reporters.

The court had issued a ruling on the videoconference hearing and sent it to the prosecutors despite the latter's objection.

Habibie, who currently resides in Hamburg, Germany, is a key witness in the case against Rahardi, who is charged with the misappropriation of Rp 62.9 billion (US$7.3 million) of Bulog nonbudgetary funds.

The hearing is expected to begin at about 2 p.m. here while Habibie will take the witness stand at about 8 a.m. Hamburg time. -- JP