Ignoring KUHAP means trampling suspects' rights

Ignoring KUHAP means trampling suspects' rights

JAKARTA (JP): The Criminal Code Procedures, which embody the principles of the presumption of innocence, respect the basic rights of people suspected of committing crimes.

There is a special chapter containing 19 articles which guarantees the rights of suspects and defendants, including the rights to have defense lawyers and to speak freely, without any pressure during an interrogation.

Article 56 of the 1981 procedures stipulates that interrogators are obliged to assign defense lawyers to people charged with committing a crime that carries the death sentence or more than fifteen years in jail.

But what is written is not always what is done.

In many cases the obligations aren't observed. As a result, ill-treatment of suspects during the interrogation happens now and then.

Nine people who were suspected of brutally killing labor activist Marsinah claimed that they had been tortured by the police and forced to confess.

In the trials, they withdrew all of the statements in the dossiers, saying that the confession was made under heavy mental and physical pressure. One of them told the court that he was prepared to confess not only to one but twenty murders if it would stop the pain he suffered during the interrogation.

Some of the defendants stated that their genitals were electrocuted or that they were forced to drink urine. The alleged mastermind of the murder told the court he was forced to lick the floor with his tongue. Another defendant said he had his toes placed under the leg of a chair on which the investigator subsequently sat.

Whatever the defendants said didn't move the judges. The Sidoarjo District Court of East Java found them guilty and sentenced them to between seven months and 17 years in jail.

The Surabaya High Court, examining their appeals, freed one of them, but upheld the guilty verdicts for the other defendants.

All of the defendants, however, were exonerated by the Supreme Court. Early this month the Supreme Court accepted the defendants' withdrawal of their confessions.

Even though many suspects claim they have been ill-treated, they hardly ever bring the case to court.

"It's hard to prove ill-treatment because of the lack of evidence. If a torture takes place, the suspect will not be sent to court before the wounds heal," Deputy Chief Justice for Criminal Affairs Adi Andojo Soetjipto, who handled Marsinah's case, told The Jakarta Post.

One of the few defendants who have sued the police for mistreatment during interrogation was Djoni Hutahayan, a bus conductor.

Represented by the Legal Aid Institute, Hutahayan sued the Cilandak police in 1986 for torture during his interrogation for a rape case. The plaintiff demanded Rp 100 million in compensation, saying that the police had rub his genitals with sandpaper and hot balm before putting them into a plastic bag filled with battery acid.

The South District Court ruled against the defendant in 1987, and in the following year the Jakarta High Court upheld the decision.

In 1991 the Supreme Court stated in 1991 that the police had committed unlawful actions and ordered them to pay Rp 500,000 in compensation to the plaintiff.

The defense lawyer of Yudi Susanto, Trimoelya D. Soerjadi, told the Post on a separate occasion that suspects are often abused during interrogation because there is no judicial consequence of the mistreatment.

In the U.S., under the Miranda Rule, the court will set aside any evidence which is gathered unlawfully, according to Trimoelya. Accordingly, the statement made by a suspect without the presence of a defense lawyer cannot be used to prove any charges.

"Unlike in the U.S., the Indonesian court will accept such statements as legal evidence," Trimoelya said.

Yudi Susanto, as well as the other eight defendants in Marsinah's case, was not accompanied by any lawyer during the interrogation.

Trimoelya said he assisted his client after the police completed the interrogation and was about to send the case file to the prosecutor's office.

In response to reports on the alleged torture in Marsinah's case, the East Jakarta provincial court, prosecutor's office and police agreed to give serious attention to the rights of a suspect to a legal counsel. Trimoelya said that in a regular meeting with the two legal institutions early this year, the Surabaya high court said that it would not accept the dossier which was made without the presence of a defense lawyer.

Trimoelya said that even though Yudi Susanto said he had been viciously tortured by the military police in their office and was forced to confess the murder, his client did not have any plan to bring the case to court.

"For my client, the Supreme Court's innocent decision is enough. Filing a lawsuit against the police for the torture will remind him of the trauma," he said.

The police have strongly denied any ill-treatment against the suspects.

East Java police chief Maj.Gen. Roesmanhadi was quoted by Gatra as saying the defendants had dramatized things.

"That was according to the defendants, but not according to me. The story has been dramatized. How could they say they were tortured while they were only chafed?" he asked. (sim)