JP/3/BASUKI/0

Defense calls for dismissal of all charges in Basuki trial

JAKARTA (JP): The defense for Amiruddin (nicknamed Nanda), charged with robbing and killing the painter Basuki Abdullah, on Wednesday asked the South Jakarta district court to acquit the defendant, saying the prosecution's case is empty.

The prosecutor Sadjidi has demanded a sentence of 20 years in prison for a man he has described as a calculating criminal.

In the defense statement, Paskalis Pieter of the Generasi Muda Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation told the court that the evidence before the court has not proven Nanda's guilt.

Indonesian criminal law states that individual testimony on a crime is admissible in court as long as a witness saw, listened to or experienced the incident.

Pieter said that none of the 12 witnesses called to the stand by the prosecutor at the previous sessions really knew what happened on Nov. 5 of last year, when Basuki was killed.

"That's why the testimony of those witnesses should be nullified," Pieter demanded.

Police analysis has uncovered that saliva left on an apple at Basuki's house on the day of his death belonged to a man or woman with blood group A.

"But such a finding doesn't identify who the man or the woman is. The main mistake is that the prosecutor didn't check the blood group of those who can go in and out of Basuki's house at their own will. The saliva might belongs to one of them," Pieter said.

Touching on the fingerprints found at Basuki's house, he said that the prints, although they are similar to the defendant's, do not guarantee that the defendant killed Basuki.

After Pieter finished reading his defense statement, Presiding Judge Moegihardjo asked prosecutor Agus Sutoto to give his counter statement.

Prosecutor Sutoto pleaded for permission to present his counter statement orally, but Moegihardjo turned him down and asked for it in a written form.

The trial will resume again next week. (11)