Intimidation could bring harsher sentence

Intimidation could bring harsher sentence

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A judge on the ad hoc tribunal trying the alleged rights abuses
against protesters in Tanjung Priok in 1984 warned on Monday of
possible heavier sentences against defendants should court
investigations uncover the intimidation of witnesses and victims
during the trials.

The court is soon to hold investigations following witnesses'
allegations of intimidation by supporters of the military
defendants.

Binsar Gultom, representing the ad hoc judges, said that
prosecutors and police were responsible for protecting witnesses
and victims from the beginning of the trial proceedings and that
the court "could consider such intimidations as incriminating
factors for defendants."

"Based on Articles 4 and 5 of the government regulation No.
2/2000 on witness protection, the prosecutors and police should
prevent the intimidation of witnesses or victims since judges
preside over the case.

"Such protection should be given even when the witnesses and
victims are in their homes. The court, of course, could not issue
an order on a protection program (which is the authority of the
prosecutors and police according to the relevant government
regulation) but we will investigate whether harassment is taking
place and we will consider this in the verdicts," Binsar told The
Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a trial against Col. Sutrisno
Mascung and 10 other military defendants.

At least 14 people were killed in North Jakarta in 1984 while
dozens of others were injured when the defendants allegedly
opened fire on a crowd of protesters assembled near Tanjung Priok
port without firing warning shots.

Last week, around 20 victims of the incident, along with their
families, asked the police to protect them. They said that
people, who they believed were Army's Special Forces (Kopassus)
soldiers, intimidated them during the trials.

They said that the soldiers had threatened to kill them if
they testified against Maj. Gen. Sriyanto Muntrasan, a Kopassus
commander and also a defendant in the case, as well as other
military defendants.

They also reported to National Military Police headquarters
and asked that soldiers be restricted from attending the trials
because they had made witnesses and victims nervous.

Sriyanto, who at the time of the 1984 shootings was a captain
heading the North Jakarta military district's operational unit,
was charged with crimes against humanity.

Under Human Rights Law No. 26/2000, the soldiers face a
minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of death if
found guilty.

"There should be a witness protection program which enables
them to testify without being obliged to meet the defendants at
the courtroom," Binsar said of the witnesses.

"When we (the judges) were invited to observe trials against
Slobodan Milosevic we learned that witnesses should not attend
the courtroom to give testimony. The policy was taken to protect
the witnesses. Maybe we can adopt it should the intimidations and
such death threats (against witnesses) be proven," Binsar added.

He was referring to the former Serb strongman who was accused
of spearheading ethnic cleansing in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in
a bid to secure Serb domination of the former Yugoslavia after
communism collapsed in the 1990s.

Milosevic was being tried at the United Nations war crimes
court in Den Haag, Netherlands.

At the Monday trial, Muchtar Dewan, one of the two witnesses,
told the court that the defendants in 1984 had fired shots at the
ground, wounding his legs.

"I didn't recognize the troops, but some of them loaded me
into a truck, along with about 20 other victims and detained us
in military detention," Muchtar, who lost one of his legs, said.