Defamation 21 won't be going home on schedule

JAKARTA (JP): A planned home coming reception for 21 jailed student activists ended in disappointment yesterday as a last minute high court ruling extended their six month sentences.

The colleagues and relatives of the students were informed as they waited at two penitentiaries to greet them that a high court decided to extend the jail terms of the 21, who were sent to the big house for defamation of President Soeharto.

Officials were neither able nor prepared to say by how long the sentences had been extended.

The relatives and colleagues then were passed off from one government agency to another as they tried to find out the precise high court ruling. All to no avail.

Even the students inside were apparently not informed that their return to freedom had been postponed indefinitely.

M. Ruszali, chief of the security section at the Salemba detention center where 19 of the students were held, told reporters that he had received information the High Court ruling but did not have the complete text.

He said the center's officials had not informed the students about the new ruling due to a lack of necessary details.

The other two students, both females, are detained at the Pondok Bambu penitentiary.

The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) which helped defend the students in court, said yesterday it was not informed of the students situation.

The 21 students were sentenced to six months imprisonment each by the Central Jakarta District Court for defaming Soeharto last month. The court said their yelling and banners presented during a demonstration at the House of Representatives (DPR) on Dec. 14 besmirched the head of state.

The students had refrained from appealing the ruling, saying they did not feel they would get justice. The government prosecutors, who had demanded jail terms ranging between eight and 15 months, appealed the ruling and demanded a stiffer punishment.

Soekanto Tjahjadi, a spokesman for the Jakarta High Court, confirmed that the verdicts had been extended in a ruling issued on June 9, but he declined to say by how long, stating that it is the job of the lower court to inform the defendants.

"All that I can say is that many of the students got longer terms," he added.

Tjahjadi said the high court was still writing the verdict because it had not been signed by the judges trying the case. The text will be delivered today to the Central Jakarta District Court, he added. (par)