Dossiers on Trisakti and Semanggi cases returned

Dossiers on Trisakti and Semanggi cases returned

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Human rights ad hoc prosecutors have returned the dossiers on
three student shootings in 1998 and 1999 to investigators from
the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) because of
procedural shortcomings in some of the witness testimony.

Attorney General's Office spokesman Barman Zahir said on
Wednesday that the dossiers were returned to the rights
commission on Tuesday.

"We hope the commission can complete the dossiers soon because
the prosecutors cannot proceed with the cases with the invalid
dossiers," he said.

Barman said that his office's ad hoc prosecutors believed that
the rights commission investigators should abide by the Criminal
Code Procedures in their work on the shooting cases.

In the dossiers submitted to the prosecutors, the testimonies
of witnesses were in the form of interview transcripts typed on
normal paper, with the witnesses' signatures at the end of the
transcripts.

According to procedures, the testimonies should be typed by
the investigators on official forms and checked by the witnesses,
who must sign each page of their testimony.

The secretary of the now-defunct rights commission team of
inquiry looking into the shootings, Usman Hamid, told The Jakarta
Post on Wednesday the dossiers included transcripts of interviews
conducted by a House of Representatives' working committee of
Indonesian Military soldiers and National Police officers
believed responsible for the shootings, which claimed the lives
of more than a dozen of protesting students.

He suggested that the ad hoc prosecutors confirm the validity
of the transcripts with the House.

In regard to the testimonies of civilian witnesses and one
police officer included in the dossiers, Usman said: "If that
becomes a problem and Komnas HAM wants us to complete them, then
we will resummon the witnesses and make sure that they sign each
page of their testimony."

The inquiry into the shootings, known as the Trisakti,
Semanggi I and Semanggi II incidents, has dragged on for years
because the military and police have refused to cooperate with
investigators.

The security institutions question the validity of the inquiry
and the rights commission, emphasizing that a military tribunal
already heard the case of the shooting deaths of four Trisakti
University students in May 1998.

A number of protesting students were also shot dead by
security officers during demonstrations near the Semanggi
cloverleaf in 1998 and 1999.

Many credit the Trisakti tragedy, and the later Semanggi
shootings, for providing the momentum for the reform movement,
but the current administration is seen as having failed to take
serious steps to find and prosecute those responsible for the
killings.