High court upholds PRD activists' verdicts

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)