Dossiers on Bintang case submitted to prosecutors

Dossiers on Bintang case submitted to prosecutors

JAKARTA (JP): Police have completed their investigation on
former legislator Sri Bintang Pamungkas, concerning his alleged
critical remarks of President Soeharto in a seminar in Germany
last April.

They submitted the dossiers to the Jakarta High Prosecutor's
Office so that they can proceed with legal prosecution.

"We have finished with the dossiers and the material evidence.
Now it's up to the court to handle his case," M. Adenan Kasian,
deputy chief prosecutor for general crimes of the Jakarta High
Prosecutor's Office, said yesterday.

He told reporters that he would hand over the dossiers and the
suspect to the Central Jakarta District Court, to enable them to
proceed with the trial by the end of the month.

The prosecutors office has named P. Sitindjak as chief
prosecutor for the trial and J. Kamaru and Suriansyah as
assistants, he added.

Yesterday, prosecutors spent one hour checking the dossiers
filed by the police. It was delayed for about 15 minutes when
Bintang and the prosecutors quarreled over the verification
procedures.

Bintang was accompanied by lawyers from the Indonesian Legal
Aid Institute: Adnan Buyung Nasution, Soekardjo Adidjojo, Mohamad
Assegaf, and R. Dwiyanto Prihartono. While the police
investigators was represented by Capt. Tugino of National Police
Headquarters.

Bintang, who is also a lecturer at the University of
Indonesia, has been accused of discrediting the government at a
seminar in Germany in April, which was held almost the same time
as President Soeharto's official visit to the country.

He has also been linked to a series of anti-Indonesian
government demonstrations in Germany during the President's
visit.

Bintang has denied the accusations, saying that he was a
curious, innocent bystander during the protest in Hanover, one of
the German cities visited by Soeharto. Bintang was in Germany to
take part in a number of speaking engagements.

He also rejected the accusations that his criticism of the
government amounted to defamation. "Does it mean I slander and
degrade the government if I criticized the government in my
speeches," he has repeatedly told reporters during previous
investigation sessions.

The outspoken politician was removed from the House of
Representatives by his own faction, the United Development Party,
in May, for allegedly going against the party's policies and for
offending a number of cabinet ministers.

The material evidence submitted by the police consists of
evidence handed over by Indonesian students who attended the
seminar and witnessed the demonstrations. It consists of
photographs of the seminar and the demonstrations, samples of the
students' hand writing, four recorded cassettes of the seminar, a
tape recorder and four samples of the leaflets distributed in the
demonstrations.

Bintang is currently fighting a lawsuit in the Jakarta State
Administrative Court against the government, who also slapped an
overseas travel ban on him in May, although he was not formally
charged yet.

Following the travel ban imposed on him, he could not attend
his daughter's graduation ceremony in the United States last May.

The Court approved on Tuesday his lawsuit, which means that
the lawsuit has passed the dismissal process and the court could
proceed with the trial.(imn)