JP/3/BASUKI/0

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)