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.