Ex-RI envoy laments smear campaign

Ex-RI envoy laments smear campaign

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia's former ambassador to the United Kingdom, Nana
Sutresna, feels he and his family are being victimized after
reports surfaced that his son had been arrested for possession of
cocaine in London.

Nana, who returned to Jakarta a fortnight ago, questioned here
on Monday the motive behind the leaking of the report to the
press nearly a month after the incident occurred, particularly as
the police themselves considered the case closed.

According to Nana, the British Foreign Office and police in
London had "found no grounds to pursue it further."

"The case has been completely closed," he added while pointing
out that many of the facts presented in the initial news report
in London's Evening Standard newspaper were totally erroneous.

The newspaper in its April 24 edition claimed that Haris
Sutresna, 20, had been arrested in a police raid on a flat in
Hackney on March 28.

He was detained after allegedly being found in possession of
crack cocaine. According to the report, however, Haris was
released after invoking diplomatic immunity.

The report alleged that the ambassador and his family were
then summoned home as a result of the affair.

Nana on Monday categorically refuted these accusations.

He said that there had been no raid on the flat and that Haris
was an innocent victim whom a group of men flung a package at as
he arrived in his car at his college.

All of a sudden, according to Nana, police immediately
descended on Haris and detained him while the other men were not
pursued.

"But the package was not his!," Nana asserted.

When asked, Nana refused to speculate on whether Haris had
been framed in the incident given that the police were so quick
to arrive on the scene and apprehend him.

There was also speculation that the details of the incident
were only raised weeks later, after he had left, to humiliate the
68-year-old diplomat.

While the 1963 Geneva Convention grants diplomats and their
dependents immunity from prosecution, serious criminal cases can
be pursued further by the host country.

Neither the British police nor the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office requested that immunity to be lifted in this case.

According to Nana, after the Indonesian Embassy in London
lodged a protest against the news article, which had quoted
unnamed sources from the police and foreign office, the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office expressed its regret over the incident.