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.