Defense lawyers want clients exonerated

JAKARTA (JP): Lawyers defending four suspects in a tax evasion and embezzlement case asked a court yesterday to acquit the defendants of all charges.

"It has not been proven that our clients have committed corruption, therefore they should be freed of all charges," lawyer Kurnianto Purnomo told the Central Jakarta District Court.

Four men are charged with masterminding and establishing companies to issue fictitious value-added tax invoices, sold for between 6 and 30 percent of their face value, between March 1993 and June 1995.

Suspects Hartono, 46, and Raden Ignatius Suarisman, 57, are being tried by a team of judges led by I.G.K. Sukarata while suspect Baharuddin Umar, 46, and Tonny Effendy, 31, are being tried by a team of judges led by Sartono.

The four allegedly published 12,500 bogus VAT invoices issued by 31 firms, costing the state tax revenue losses amounting to approximately Rp 58 billion.

Prosecuting and defending lawyers are using different laws to argue their cases.

The prosecutors are charging the four suspects with a law established in 1971 on corruption crime while defense lawyers are using a 1994 law on general guidelines of tax procedure to defend their clients.

"The 1971 law is not a trash can that can be used to cover any crimes and not a particular case," lawyer Sudjono, representing suspect Suarisman, said, referring to the irrelevancies of the prosecutors' charges.

Entrepreneurs are obliged to collect 10 percent in value-added tax when consumers make purchases. The difference between incoming and outgoing taxes collected by entrepreneurs is the amount deposited with the state as value-added taxes. Exporters are entitled to reclaim the amount of tax deposited with the state when the goods are exported.

Prosecutors had earlier demanded that the men be sentenced to 14 years imprisonment and that each defendant should compensate the state with amounts ranging from Rp 10.5 billion to Rp 10.9 billion in addition to a Rp 30 million fine each.

The judges' verdicts will be announced on July 9. (14)