Judge criticize police over Marsinah inquiry
Judge criticize police over Marsinah inquiry
JAKARTA (JP): Justice Adi Andojo Soetjipto criticized the
police yesterday for pursuing their investigation of two men
charged with the murder of labor activist Marsinah last year,
despite the Supreme Court's decision to acquit them both.
Justice Adi warned that the police effort was futile because
by law a person cannot be prosecuted a second time for the same
case, even if the charges are different.
"Even if the police investigators find new facts to support
their case, the two men cannot be brought to trial for the same
case," he told reporters.
Justice Adi presided over the hearing when the cases of the
nine defendants, convicted by the lower courts for the murder of
Marsinah, were brought to the Supreme Court. The justice
exonerated all nine in May, saying that the trials did not
provide sufficient evidence for conviction.
Police have since reopened the investigation and claim that at
least two of the previous suspects might have been involved in
the murder after all.
Legal experts have since been debating the interpretation of
the principle of nebis i nidem, by which a person already
acquitted of a crime cannot be prosecuted again on the same
charges.
Some, including Attorney General Singgih, hold that a person
can be tried again for the same case but on a different charge.
Others, including Justice Adi, say they cannot.
"This should serve as a lesson for the police that they be
more careful and accurate in their investigations," Adi said.
Police have announced that they are continuing with the
investigation of the two previous suspects in spite of the
controversy.
Maj. Gen. M.B. Hutagalung, deputy for National Police
operations, said investigators were only concerned with solving
the murder case and finding the killer.
Whether or not the case can be tried depends on the
prosecutors and the judges, he told reporters on a separate
occasion yesterday.
Muladi, a legal expert and a member of the National Commission
on Human Rights, believes that the previous suspects can still be
prosecuted if there are sufficient grounds to support the
allegations that they were involved.
The prosecution simply needs to add something new to the
charge, which could be new accomplices, new charges, or new
evidence, Muladi told The Jakarta Post.
He said the acquitted defendants may have been accessories to
the murder that was committed by somebody else. "If that is the
case, they can be tried on charges of accessory to murder and not
for the murder as in the first time round," he said.
He advised the police and government prosecutors to study
carefully the rulings of the Supreme Court which acquitted the
defendants before they draft a new dossier based on their new
evidence.
Marsinah's badly mutilated body was found in Nganjuk, East
Java, only a few days after she led a workers strike in May 1994
at a watchmaking company in Sidoarjo, near Surabaya, where she
worked.
Nine people -- the company's owner, management staff and
security guards -- were later found guilty by the lower courts
based on the prosecution's dossier that linked the labor dispute
with the murder. All nine suspects denied any role in the murder
and said that they were framed for the crime committed by others.
(imn/har)