Kopassus general 'must stand trial in Priok case'

Kopassus general 'must stand trial in Priok case'

Urip Hudiono and Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta Human Rights Court on Thursday stressed that the
defendant Maj. Gen. Sriyanto Muntrasan, now the Army's Special
Forces (Kopassus) commander, must stand trial for crimes against
humanity which took place in 1984.

The defense claims of Sriyanto, then a captain heading the
North Jakarta military district's operational unit at the time of
the Tanjung Priok shootings, had said the court had no legal
right to try him.

However Judge Herman Heller Hutapea said that the 2000 law on
human rights trials, and the presidential decrees on the
establishment of tribunals, show that the court has both the
authority and the competence to hear the case. The judges
rejected the defense claims that the retroactive principle --
under which the rights court established in 2000 hears earlier
cases -- breaches the law. They said that the penal code does not
touch on gross violations of human rights while the defense
maintained that Sriyanto had not committed such acts.

Sriyanto's trial will be adjourned until Dec. 11 when the
panel of judges will begin to hear testimony from witnesses.

Sriyanto faces at least 10 years in prison and a maximum of
the death penalty if proven guilty.

Meanwhile the issue of compensation for the massacre continues
to divide the victims, who clashed during Thursday's session .

The issue of whether to accept or reject offers of
compensation, or islah, appeared to be distracting victims from
the trial, while the independent Commission for Missing Persons
and Victims of Violence (Kontras) pursued the issue of the
missing material evidence.

The clash among the victims occurred just moments after
Sriyanto was escorted out of the court by scores of his soldiers,
who had packed the court as usual.

"They (the pro-islah victims) suddenly grabbed me and pushed
me around, asking where Mochtar Beni Biki was," said Ishaqa, one
of the anti-islah victims.

Beni Biki is the younger brother of Amir Biki, a noted cleric
who was killed in the 1984 shootings, and who the pro-islah
victims accuse of causing the incident in the first place with
his anti-Soeharto sermons in mosques in the Tanjung Priok area of
North Jakarta.

The clash itself apparently started when the pro-islah victims
became irked by a group of demonstrators claiming to be "victims
of military atrocities" who marched along the corridors of the
courthouse carrying banners demanding that "the murderous
generals be tried".

"Who do they think they are? We are the victims of the Tanjung
Priok incident," said Asep Saprudin, secretary of the Yayasan
Penerus Bangsa (YPB), a foundation formed to facilitate
compensation for the victims of the incident.

The pro-islah victims, who wore YPB caps and dark blue shirts
with the slogan "Islah, Kebahagiaan Kami" (Islah means
contentment for us), then snatched the banner from the
demonstrators, and accused the anti-islah victims and
"communists" of being behind the demonstration.

Court security personnel and police deployed to guard the
courthouse immediately rushed in to stop the situation
escalating.

On Mar. 1, 2001, 87 representatives of the victims of the
Tanjung Priok incident signed an islah (Islamic reconciliation)
agreement at the Sunda Kelapa mosque in Central Jakarta with
military officers involved in the incident, including Gen. (ret)
Try Sutrisno, who was then the Jakarta military commander.

Also on Thursday, Usman Hamid of Kontras and a number of
witnesses, met with National Police spokesperson Zainuri Lubis
about evidence that has gone missing -- including several
semiautomatic weapons, 1984 standard procedure manuals for riots,
a recording of the Sep. 12 incident, and the Jakarta army
detainees register, Usman said.

He said that according to military headquarters, the evidence
had been lost. According to the judges, however, based on the
defendants' case files the evidence had been confiscated by the
then deputy attorney general for general crimes, MA Rachman.

"There are indications that the evidence has been deliberately
misplaced," he said, adding that the loss could weaken the
prosecution case against the defendants.