Investigation of Bintang continues

Investigation of Bintang continues

JAKARTA (JP): Former legislator Sri Bintang Pamungkas went
through another round of questioning yesterday concerning his
alleged role in a series of activities opposing the Indonesian
government in Germany in April.

Bintang said the investigation at the National Police
Headquarters expanded from questioning on his personal experience
in Germany to the involvement of other people in demonstrations
and seminars in that country.

"Police investigators let me listen to a recording tape, in
which a woman was speaking at an academic forum," he told
reporters at the office of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation
after the questioning yesterday.

He said that he was asked whether he could identify the
speaker, whose voice he heard on the tape.

"I told them that I had no idea who was speaking as the tape
was too noisy to recognize the voice," said the former legislator
from the United Development Party.

When the police asked him whether Yeni Rosa Damayanti, a human
rights activist, also delivered a speech on the day he lectured
at Humboldt University in Berlin on April 10, 1995, he
acknowledged this was true.

"Yeni was asked by the organizing committee to deliver a
speech right after me," he said.

He said he had not realized previously that Yeni also had been
invited to speak at the seminar, saying that he thought he was
the only Indonesian invited by the university.

Bintang insisted that the investigation into his activities is
"a mistake".

"The investigation should be stopped because the police do not
have adequate evidence of my involvement in the protests, which
occurred at the same time President Soeharto was on an official
visit to Germany," he said.

"If the government thinks I defamed the President and the
government in my speech, the government is wrong," he said,
adding that he had no intention of doing so.

Bintang has been questioned repeatedly over a statement in the
seminar in which he allegedly called President Soeharto a
dictator.

"I only disagreed with several policies of the President," he
added, saying that he believed the tape had been edited.

The questioning will continue on Monday. (imn)