Land compensation case takes new turn

JAKARTA (JP): A small trader evicted from his land in 1989 has asked the Supreme Court whether he is the rightful owner of the bank interest accumulated from land compensation which he refused to accept almost 10 years ago.

The compensation was placed in a government bank account and had been earning interest.

His Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) lawyers said they had lodged a formal request for a court ruling called a surat permohonan fatwa (letter of instruction) on Monday.

The case of trader Henry M. Ali had been dubbed the "One Billion Shanty" case after his earlier Rp 1.3 billion lawsuit against the Jakarta governor, the South Jakarta mayor, and the director general of highways at the Ministry of Public Works.

In a press release on Thursday the head of the institute's land division, T. Haryo Karbyanto, said they had asked the court to rule on the status of ownership of the bank interest.

Henry took his compensation of Rp 54,047,620 (US$22,006), last month after the South Jakarta District Court rejected his lawsuit, filed in 1996, for a second time.

The court said he could collect his interest at the BNI bank in Tebet, estimated to be Rp 50 million, if there was a ruling from the Supreme Court.

T. Haryo said, "After efforts to seek justice failed, our client decided to stop seeking justice and to take the compensation ...," the lawyers said in a letter to Chief Justice Sarwata.

Henry was evicted from his 2,000-square-meter plot in Srengseng Sawah, South Jakarta, in 1985 after he refused the offered compensation, saying it was too low.

Henry claimed he had been told that his land was for residential use when he asked government officials about it in 1979. But he was later told it was for a road project.

The South Jakarta mayoralty had entrusted the compensation to the South Jakarta District Court after no agreement could be reached.

The money was kept in the account of the South Jakarta District Court since December 1987. (05)