Experts differ on sentence on pedophile

Experts differ on sentence on pedophile

JAKARTA (JP): Experts said yesterday they basically agreed on
the death sentence, but differed on the verdict handed down
yesterday to Siswanto, alias Robot Gedek. He was found guilty of
the sexual abuse and premeditated murders of 12 boys.

Criminologist Purnianti said the sentence was progress in the
protection of children.

"It was the final say in the interest of the victims," she
said yesterday.

"A person (intending to do a similar crime) would think
twice," she added. She referred to protection of children
outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Right of the
Child, which Indonesia ratified in 1990.

Moreover, the victims, all street boys, had no parents and
were more vulnerable, she said.

A criminal code lecturer, Loebby Loqman, questioned whether
all necessary factors had been weighed before the sentence was
given.

He said he was worried that the sentence "only reflected
revenge," which should not be its purpose.

"The judge might have been influenced by the vindictive outcry
of the public," he said.

People seem vengeful, he said, even by trivial things such as
minor traffic accidents, in which drivers could be mobbed by
angry bystanders.

The defendant, Loebby said, should have been given a trial
period to rehabilitate before the judge decided on the sentence.

"The defendant should be given a chance for rehabilitation,"
he said.

In the People's Republic of China, he said, judges give
defendants two years before a death sentence is handed down.

Loebby and Purnianti separately said that death sentences
should be handed down very selectively.

Purnianti said it would be "primitive" if every case which
evoked public anger resulted in a death sentence.

A lack of selectivity would mean total distrust in laws and
correctional institutions, she said.

Commenting on the controversy of the sentence, she said, "we
still need the threat that a death sentence gives, even though it
may not be carried out," she said.

She said one requirement in handing down the sentence was that
the defendant understood what he faced. Yesterday the judge
tried to make Robot understand with repeated explanations, to
which Robot's response was unclear. Robot's lawyers have
appealed.

Purnianti said even though Robot has not received any
rehabilitation yet, "the panic he caused (among the public) could
not be measured".

The public would hopefully be influenced by the sentence's
message to protect children, she said, and pay more attention to
street children. (anr)