Defense lawyers want clients exonerated
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)