High court upholds PRD activists' verdicts

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta High Court has upheld the sentences against five leaders of the Democratic People's Party (PRD) who were convicted for subversion earlier this year.

Judge Supraptini Sutarto told reporters that the high court found the rulings by the Central Jakarta District Court to be "correct and precise".

The panel of judges adopted the verdicts of the lower court in their entirety, she said.

Five leaders of the PRD, all in their 20s, were sentenced by the Central Jakarta District Court in April to between seven and 13 years imprisonment.

Chairman Budiman Sudjatmiko received the stiffest term. The other four convicted activists are Garda Sembiring, Yakobus Eko Kurniawan, Ignatius Damianus Pranowo and Suroso.

They were all found guilty of undermining the state ideology Pancasila and inciting students and workers to demonstrate against the government.

The PRD, a group of mostly young activists, rose to prominence last year when it took part in a free-speech forum at the disputed head office of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). Its members went into hiding after the military blamed them for the July 27 riot in Central Jakarta.

It is not immediately clear on what grounds the high court based its verdict given that the defendants, according to their lawyers, had not even formally filed their appeals to the court.

The defendants had only expressed orally their intention to appeal, they said.

Luhut M.P. Pangaribuan of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute and a member of the defense team, called the High Court's decision a "miscarriage of justice".

Luhut said his clients had not been able to file an appeal in writing because they were waiting for the documents from the Central Jakarta District Court regarding the verdicts.

"How could they (the defendants) gain justice if the district court had not provided them with the verdicts in writing?" he asked.

The high court had made a ruling without allowing the PRD activists to defend themselves, he said.

"This further supports the perception that in political legal cases, the verdicts had been made before the trial started," he said.

Six other members of the PRD have been sentenced to between 18 months and six years imprisonment for similar offenses by the South Jakarta District Court.

Four of them had announced their intention to lodge appeals but they too were waiting for their court papers, their lawyer Hotma Timbul Hutapea said. (05)