Defendants deny being drunk during Tampubolon murder

JAKARTA (JP): The four alleged killers of T.M.F. Tampubolon admitted before the East Jakarta District Court yesterday that they drank some alcoholic beverages before attacking the army general, but they were not drunk.

Tampubolon, who was in civilian clothes, passing the Cipinang area in East Jakarta on April 5, was stabbed to death by one of the defendants after a brief quarrel. He died one hour later in an East Jakarta hospital.

The four defendants are Hendrik Setyawan, 25, Rusdi Abdul Rahman, 24, Lukman Achmad, 30, and Risdiyanto, 25, who each testified in the hearings for the others today.

In each session the panel of judges remained the same but the team of prosecutors was replaced.

Not drunk

During the trial of Risdiyanto, Rusdi testified that on that day, he met the other three defendants at a place in Cipinang several hundred meters from the crime site.

He said that all of them talked while drinking beer, Vodka, and locally-made liquor. Rusdi said he had no idea where the drinks came from.

Responding to Prosecutor Saleh Abdurrahman's question, all the defendants said that they were neither drunk nor losing control of their balance while on their way to a nearby billiard center afterwards.

They also said they could play the game normally.

The four told the court one of them shouted at Tampubolon's passing car as it nearly hit Hendrik on their way to a food stall later.

"Use your horn, Sir," Hendrik shouted as quoted by Rusdi before the session.

But the defendants also said they did not try to stop the car.

As they were sitting in the stall, Lukman saw a man approaching. The man, who later turned out to be Tampubolon, the car driver, shouted at Lukman "You, here."

The man gripped Hendrik by the shirt collar and they soon began a quarrel. Hendrik stabbed Tampubolon but he told the court he could not remember how many times or in which part of the victim's body.

According to the postmortem, Tampubolon died later of 11 stab wounds to his chest, stomach, back and hands.

The presiding judge adjourned the trial until Thursday. (03)