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.