Haryogi gets off easy with 9-month jail term

JAKARTA (JP): Defendant Haryogi Maulani, 37, breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday after a judge sentenced him to a nine-month jail term for illegal arms possession.

He, however, only has to stay two more months in jail as he has already been incarcerated for seven months since his February arrest for possession of a loaded and unlicensed Walther handgun and an unloaded AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova) rifle.

The closed eyes of the defendant's wife Sarita flew open and she gasped in relief upon learning that her husband had only two more months to go in jail.

The sentence was handed down by presiding judge Sri Handojo in a hearing at the West Jakarta District Court.

"Relieving factors include the fact that the defendant has a wife and three children, that he is still suffering from palette problems, and that he runs a firm which employs some 600 people who are at risk of losing their jobs, should he be imprisoned for long," Handojo said, adding that this was the defendant's first offense.

He said the defendant had once helped the State Intelligence Coordinating Body (Bakin), when his father, Lt. Gen.(ret) Zaini Azhar Maulani, was its chief.

Defendant Haryogi was proven guilty on Thursday of violating Law No. 12/1951 on illegal arms possession, which carries a maximum punishment of a death sentence.

The sentence handed down by Handojo was much lighter than the one-year jail term demanded by prosecutor Maju Ambarita.

On Feb. 16 this year, Taman Sari Police officers of West Jakarta confiscated two weapons from the defendant, who had tried to hide one in the parking lot of Hotel Mercure in West Jakarta, while another was concealed in the defendant's trousers.

The one in the parking compound was an AK-47 rifle, serial number 4857, but did not contain the magazine.

Another was the more incriminating Walther handgun, number 271759, which had a magazine containing seven live bullets.

Handojo noted at the hearing that the permits for the weapons, allegedly issued by Bakin, were both fake.

Both permits were allegedly signed by Brig. Gen. Soetopo, Deputy IV of Bakin, a witness who testified before the court that he had never seen the two permits, let alone signed them.

Soetopo had earlier testified that he had issued only one permit for gun use to Haryogi, which was SPRIN 170/XI/1998, dated Nov. 26, 1998.

"The permit was issued for the use of a Baretta with a .22 millimeter caliber. It expired on Dec. 31, 1999, and was never extended. I signed the permit on the orders of the then Bakin chief, Zaini Azhar Maulani," Soetopo had said.

"It was issued because Haryogi had been made a special informant working for Bakin, to expose a fake money syndicate."

When reporters asked what the illegal arms possession had to do with Haryogi's health and employees working in Haryogi's firm, Handojo answered: "His illnesses would worsen should he stay longer in jail and if his company went bankrupt because of his incarceration, what would happen to his employees?"

A West Jakarta police detective, who was involved in the arrest of Haryogi, regretted the court's verdict.

"The court has failed to answer as to what Haryogi was doing at a hotel with a gun and seven live bullets in his possession?" the officer, who requested anonymity, told The Jakarta Post.

"Haryogi, a civilian, had an unlicensed gun and seven bullets. Does that not show an intent to shoot somebody... why should courts here wait for someone to shoot somebody first before sentencing the person to a solid jail term?" he asked. (ylt)