Court suspends judges' trials over legal technicality

Court suspends judges' trials over legal technicality

JAKARTA (JP): Central Jakarta District Court suspended on
Tuesday corruption trials involving two Supreme Court justices
due to legal defects in the indictments.

Defendants Marnis Kahar and Supraptini Sutarto were tried
separately by the same panel of judges and were defended.

Marnis's case was handled by prosecutor Surung Aritonang,
while Supraptini was indicted by prosecutor Soejitno.

The presiding judge, Rusdi As'ad, said that the court had to
suspend the trials of both defendants as the indictments
"overlapped too much and were inaccurate."

According to the indictments, both defendants had violated
Article 1, Paragraph 1c of Anticorruption Law No. 3/1971,
Anticorruption Law No. 31/1999, Article 420 of the Criminal Code
concerning bribery conducted by judges and Article 418 of the
Criminal Code about gifts received by state officials.

The court claimed that the prosecutors had mixed up the
anticorruption laws, which covers a specific offense and the
Criminal Code, which deals with general offenses.

"The indictment is questionable... ," Rusdi said, adding that
anticorruption laws carry a maximum higher sentence than that of
the Criminal Code.

Under anticorruption laws, if found guilty, anyone could be
sentenced to life compared to 20 years of imprisonment as
stipulated in the Criminal Code.

Rusdi, however, rejected the arguments presented by the
defendants' lawyers, who demanded two weeks ago that the court
postpone the cases until Endin Wahyudin's case is over.

Endin, the witness who reported the bribery cases, is
currently facing trial on charges of slander and defamation of
the justices in Central Jakarta District Court.

Endin had claimed that he, a middleman, had given Rp 50
million in bribes each to Marnis and Supraptini, who were on a
panel of judges handling a land case. He also said that he bribed
M. Yahya Harahap, who presided over the panel, with Rp 96
million.

Yahya, now retired from the Supreme Court, is being tried at
West Jakarta District Court over the same case.

Prosecutor Soejitno said after the trial was over that he
would appeal to a higher court against the district court's
decision.

He said that the judges had different interpretations of the
laws.

"It is about the rules of the game. The judges said that the
indictment was too much. Actually, it is impossible for us to
only mention Article 1, Paragraph 1c (of the Anticorruption Law)
without mentioning other articles," he said. (04)