Judge Prim tough on drug offenders

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

His name comes last on the list of the Tangerang District Court judges as seen on the board hanging on the wall at the court building. This is because he is the most junior judge at the court.

But never underestimate him.

The 39-year-old Judge Prim Haryadi, who has been at the court since in 1999, and he is a "death judge".

Prim Haryadi one of the three-member panel of judges who has the responsibility to issue death sentences for drug traffickers tried at the Tangerang District Court.

In January 2000, Prim, along with presiding Judge Satria US Gumay and Judge Asep Iwan Irawan, imposed the capital punishment on a Nepalese man who smuggled 1,750 grams of heroin from Nepal into the country.

Since then, Prim has handed down the death penalty for seven defendants.

As for the district court, it has sentenced to death a total of 17 defendants, and gave one defendant a life sentence in similar cases. They are five Nepalese men, four Indonesian women and one Indonesian man, three Nigerian men, a Thai woman, a Pakistani man, an Angolan man and a Zimbabwean man. A man from Malawi received life imprisonment, but the West Java High Court changed the sentence into a death penalty.

None of the defendants, however, have been executed.

While those who are on death row are all couriers, the people behind them remain untouched.

Indonesia, according to National Police chief Da'i Bachtiar, is now considered as a psychotropic substance producer, and a prominent narcotics distribution center for Asia. He estimated that 1.2 percent of the country's 210 million people were drug abusers.

Last week, in observance of the Anti-Drug Day, the newly established National Narcotics Body (BNN) selected Prim as the right person representing the judicial institution to receive its first annual Main Award related to the attempts in upholding the law.

The token of appreciation, signed by Bachtiar, was directly presented by President Megawati at the State Palace on Wednesday.

During the ceremony, the president praised the Tangerang District Court and called for harsh sentences for drug dealers.

Commenting on the award, Prim told The Jakarta Post: "The award was not for me personally. I just represented the legal institution, specifically the Tangerang District Court."

"I am very concerned about the nation's young generation. I have tried many junior high and high school students for drug abuse. What will the nation's future be like if the young generation is poisoned by drugs. We, the judges in Tangerang will never compromise with drug dealers," he stressed.

Being aware that the country is dragging its feet in the implementation of the law, Prim said it depends on three factors: the laws themselves, the societal conditions and the law enforcers.

Unfortunately, the laws had many loopholes, the people lacked a real legal awareness, while the law enforcers, in an effort to enrich themselves, were involved in collusion, corruption and nepotism, he said.

Prim was born in 1963 in Bengkalis, Riau, from Minang parents - his late father was a policeman, while his mother a junior high school principal. He finished his elementary school and junior high school in Tembilahan, a regency town in Riau province and studied at a senior high school in Padang, West Sumatra. He continued his education at the School of Law at Andalas University, where he began to have an interest in becoming a judge.

"As a university student, I thought that judges were the most powerful figures who could decide cases," said the father of two sons and one daughter from his marriage with Roseyanti in 1987.

Prim spent 16 months working for a private bank in Jakarta before he was admitted as judge candidate at the East Jakarta District court in 1988.

In 1992 he began serving as a judge in Kota Bumi and then in Metro, Lampung. Prim was once sent by the Metro District court to take a two-month commercial law course in Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan.

He was transferred to Tangerang in 1999.

Soon after he sentenced to death a Thai woman in March for smuggling 600 grams of heroin into the country from Bangkok, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights assigned him as deputy court chief in Labuha district court. Labuha is a small town in the troubled province of North Maluku, but there have been no reports about any high-profile drug crimes there.

The ministry said that the transfer was just routine, and that Prim was promoted, but many people alleged that Prim was "banished" because of his harsh stance against drug traffickers.

One of his colleagues questioned the decision, saying that usually it would be a senior judge who would be transferred.

In April, Prim asked the court to delay the implementation of his transfer until September as he needed time to finish his studies at the University of Indonesia for a master's degree in law. He added that usually a judge would be transferred after serving four years at a court.

Besides that, it would be difficult for his wife, who works as civil servant at the Tangerang municipal administration, to get a place at the Maluku administration. It would be difficult because of the implementation of the regional autonomy, he said.

"I am still waiting for the Supreme Court's decree whether or not it grants my request," said Prim.

Prim said he had never received any threats due to the death sentence. But before the trial, he admitted that he often received bribery offers.

"They offered me a huge sum of money, which is enough to cover my cost of living for three years," said Prim, who likes playing tennis.

But Prim was not interested, even though his take home pay is a mere Rp 3.3 million (just over US$300) per month. He said that to improve his family's welfare, he would teach at private universities.