Court to deliver verdict in 'Tempo' suit on Monday

Court to deliver verdict in 'Tempo' suit on Monday

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The Central Jakarta District Court is expected to deliver its
verdict on the libel complaints filed by well-connected
businessman Tomy Winata against Tempo chief editor Bambang
Harymurti and two of its journalists, Teuku Iskandar Ali and
Ahmad Taufik, on Monday.

The three have been charged with inciting public unrest and
defaming Tomy in an article titled 'Is Tomy in Tenabang?'.

The article in question, which the weekly ran in its March 3-
9, 2003, edition, insinuated that Tomy had been involved in the
fire that gutted part of the Tanah Abang textile market, Central
Jakarta, in February 2003 in the hope of being awarded the
renovation project.

Besides demanding a two-year jail term for each of the
defendants, the prosecutors have also asked the court to
immediately detain Bambang after handing down its verdict.

Hinca Panjaitan of the Press Council's Legal Division said
that this request showed the prosecution's inconsistency with
similar cases.

The editors of the Rakyat Merdeka daily, who were sentenced to
jail last year for defaming President Megawati Soekarnoputri and
House of Representatives speaker Akbar Tandjung, were not
detained pending appeals.

"It is also a pity that the prosecutors, as part of the
country's legal system, are not at the forefront of promoting an
understanding that the Press Law does, in fact, already cover
defamation in the work of journalists," he said on Sunday.

The Press Council expressed its concern over the ongoing
prosecution of journalists using the Criminal Code.

The Tempo media group has to date faced nine lawsuits. Seven
of them were filed by Tomy Winata in three of the five Jakarta
district courts. Tomy is seeking a whopping Rp 342 billion
(US$40.7 million) in damages for material and non-material
losses.

Monday's verdict will be the fifth in a series of legal battle
between the media group and the businessman.

In four out of the seven cases against Tempo, the magazine has
always lost. The East Jakarta District Court ordered Tempo co-
founder and senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad in May to run a
public apology to Tomy for his statements that deemed libelous in
the group's Koran Tempo daily.

The court, however, rejected Tomy's demand for Rp 21 billion
(US$2.26 million) in damages and the prosecution's request for an
asset preservation order to be placed on Goenawan's homes.

In March, the Central Jakarta District Court ordered Tempo
magazine to pay Rp 500 million in damages to Tomy and run a
public apology in several media outlets for three days over the
Tanah Abang fire article.

A month earlier, however, the court rejected a Rp 120 billion
civil suit filed by Tomy against Tempo. In January, the South
Jakarta District Court ordered the group's Koran Tempo daily to
pay a whopping US$1 million in damages to Tomy for an article
saying that he planned to open a gambling den in South Sulawesi.

The magazine also incurred the wrath of the New Order regime.

Tempo was shut down in 1994 for running an article about
irregularities in the purchase of 39 German warships by then
Minister of Research and Technology Baharuddin Jusuf Habibie, who
later became the country's third president from 1998 to 1999.

Despite all its troubles, Tempo has been praised by the public
for its excellent journalistic work and is regarded by many as
one of the country's main defenders of press freedom.