Detained politicians refuse to be questioned

JAKARTA (JP): Politicians Sri Bintang Pamungkas and Julius Usman, currently under investigation for subversion, refused to answer any questions yesterday from the Attorney General's Office interrogators.

Bintang and Julius, leaders of the unrecognized Indonesian Democratic Union Party, announced they would not respond to further questioning unless the interrogators met their demand for clarification on certain matters.

Both men, for instance, wanted to know who reported them to the Attorney General's Office.

Another party activist, Saleh Abdullah, was detained and questioned along with Bintang and Julius. Saleh was reportedly willing to answer the interrogators' questions on the condition that he did not have to sign the dossier on him.

The three men's lawyers, Achmad Fauzan and Hotma Timbul Hutapea, told reporters that during the one-hour interrogation at the Attorney General's Office yesterday, Bintang and Julius had said that they were no longer willing to be questioned.

Bintang, Julius and Saleh were arrested on March 5. They are being accused of subversion for sending Idul Fitri greetings cards which contained the party's three-point agenda: to boycott the 1997 election, to reject President Soeharto's reelection in 1998 and to prepare a new era for a post-Soeharto administration.

Bintang sent Attorney General Singgih a letter yesterday protesting his new interrogator S.T. Silangit, whom he said had interrogated him harshly. He also demanded that his questioning be stopped.

Bintang also lodged his complaints with the National Commission on Human Rights and the Legal Aid Institute.

On March 12, Bintang demanded that the prosecutor leading the investigation, Mulyono, be replaced because of his alleged involvement in the latest corruption scandal at the Attorney General's Office.

On the following day, Silangit was appointed to head the interrogating team in Mulyono's place, but Mulyono remained in the team and might still investigate Bintang later.

Singgih cold-shouldered Bintang's refusal. "I'd let him refuse to be questioned. He is only harming himself because his actions mean we can't speed up his case," Singgih said.

Also at the Attorney General's Office yesterday, government critic Ali Sadikin and former diplomat M. Yusuf Ronodipuro were questioned for allegedly possessing a banned book written by fellow critic Soebadio Sastrosatomo.

"I posses that book, if the Attorney General's Office wants to confiscate it, just do it then," Ali said. (05)