'I doubt Adiguna will be punished'

Police have submitted the case of Adiguna Sutowo, the sole suspect in the murder of waiter Yohannes "Rudy" Berchmans Haerudy Natong, to the Attorney-General's Office, but Jakartans still have their doubts whether justice will be served. The following are excerpts from interviews The Jakarta Post did on Friday.

Mulyadi, 41, is a civil servant at the Jati Padang subdistrict office in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta. He lives in Ragunan, also in South Jakarta.

I doubt if a wealthy person like Adiguna Sutowo will ever be punished for what he has done. I appreciate what the police have done so far but law enforcers do not only include the police but also prosecutors and judges.

From what I know, as soon as this case is submitted to prosecutors, media coverage will go down and people will quickly forget. Look what happened in the case of Nurdin Halid and Adrian Waworuntu.

If people forget, Adiguna will use his power and wealth to influence the legal process. He will bribe witnesses and law officers. I predict that he will be sentenced to only one or two years in prison.

Wati, 27, is a counter attendant at a mall in Central Jakarta. She lives with her family in Manggarai, South Jakarta.

Actually, I don't really care if people have guns or not, as long as I can get home safely from my work place every night. I don't know if the policy to give gun licenses to civilians has anything to do with armed robbery, but if it does, then I totally disagree with it.

What I really worry about is my own safety when I am out of the house. I get very worried that criminals will rob or rape me as I read that many people fall victim to armed robbery. I think the police should concentrate on protecting us instead of giving out gun licenses.

They should learn from this Adiguna case, and prevent the same thing happening again.

Leo, 32, works as a freelance writer and translator. He resides in Serpong, Tangerang.

I think it is too risky to let civilians own guns. We must acknowledge that most people are not mature enough to be able to use firearms properly. We should learn from the bloody incident at the Hilton hotel. An educated businessman, like Adiguna (Sutowo), could become so childish and emotional and pull the trigger. Even worse incidents could happen if we allowed civilians to freely own guns. This incident portrays how our society is simply not ready to let civilians to possess firearms.

The key, I think, is in the level of awareness of our society to the law. As long as respect for the law remains relatively low, we cannot be sure that people who possess firearms will use them responsibly.