Detained politicians refuse to be questioned
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)