'Detention of Tommy's lawyer legal'

JAKARTA: The South Jakarta District Court declared Tuesday that the police detention of Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra's lawyer, Elza Syarief, was legal.

Judge Torang H. Tampubolon rejected the argument of Elza's lawyers who insisted that the police had abused their power by detaining Elza for allegedly bribing witnesses to lie at Tommy's murder trial on April 10.

The lawyers said the police had violated the law by detaining Elza without the order of the presiding judge hearing Tommy's case.

The police had earlier arrested Rahmat Hidayat and Tatang for allegedly giving false testimony and taking bribes from Elza. Both Rahmat and Tatang, former security guards at the Soeharto family-owned Cemara Apartments, had admitted that Elza paid them Rp 2 million each to lie before the court.

Elza, who has been detained for about two weeks, claimed that she gave them Rp 1 million each to buy descent clothes to attend the hearing. --JP