Damanik sentenced to three years

The district court in Palu, Central Sulawesi, sentenced a church minister to three years in prison for the illegal possession of arms and ammunition.

A panel of judges presided over by I Nyoman Somanada said Rev. Rinaldy Damanik who was charged with violating Article 55 of Law No. 12/1951 on the state of emergency, was found guilty of possessing seven unregistered rifles, four guns and 144 rounds of ammunition when he was helping to evacuate people terrorized in Marowali, near the restive Poso area on Aug. 17, 2002.

"I am disappointed, the court's verdict is not fair," Damanik's wife Atika said after the trial on Monday.

Damanik's lawyer Johnson Panjaitan said he would ask his client to appeal because the court verdict was groundless and the judges did not consider all the legal evidence in the field to make the verdict.

Law expert J.E. Sahetapy who gave testimony in court, said that Damanik's arrest was "engineered" by the police and government prosecutors to make a scapegoat out of him for a series of post-conflict violent incidents.

Damanik, one of the Christian leaders who helped shape and was a co-signer of the Malino peace agreement on Dec. 21, 2001, was reportedly given poisoned food at the police detention house in Palu.

More than 2,000 people were killed and thousands of others were forcibly displaced when Poso erupted in fierce Christian- Muslim conflict in 1999. It has since been declared safe. -- JP