Lawyer demands revelation of Marsinah murder probe result

Lawyer demands revelation of Marsinah murder probe result

JAKARTA (JP): A lawyer in the murder case of labor leader
Marsinah questioned yesterday why police took so long to announce
the results of a blood test which many expected would shed light
on the as yet unresolved case.

Trimoelja D. Soerjadi, the lawyer for the acquitted defendant
Judi Susanto, demanded for an immediate disclosure of the blood
test results in an open letter to National Police Chief Gen.
Dibyo Widodo. A copy of the letter was made available to The
Jakarta Post yesterday.

"Why is it taking the authorities so long to announce the
results of Marsinah's blood test? It has been two years since the
authorities sent a blood sample to the United States for a DNA
test," Trimoelja said in the letter.

Quoting a 1992 book, Introduction to Forensic Sciences, the
lawyer from Surabaya said it usually takes a maximum six weeks to
find out DNA test results.

"Did police really send Marsinah's blood sample to the United
States? When was it sent?" Trimoelja asked.

"And if it was truly sent, what are the results of the blood
test?" he added.

Marsinah, who organized a workers' strike at PT Catur Putra
Surya -- a watch manufacturer in Sidoarjo, East Java -- was found
dead on May 9, 1993. Her badly mutilated body was lying in an
abandoned shack near Nganjuk, 90 kilometers west of Sidoarjo.

Marsinah and fellow factory workers, who were involved in a
labor dispute with the factory's managers, went on strike to
demand a 20 percent raise in wages above the minimum wage.

Following negotiations with Marsinah and 12 other workers'
representatives, the management agreed to fulfill the demand.
Soon after the agreement was signed, however, Marsinah and other
representatives were summoned to Sidoarjo Military District
Headquarters, where they claimed they were intimidated into
signing letters of resignation.

In another part of the letter, Trimoelja asked the police
chief to follow up on reports that Marsinah was actually still
alive when three policemen of Madiun District Police found her
with serious wounds.

"The three policemen did not bring her to the nearest
hospital, but instead took her to an abandoned shack and left her
there alone," he said.

Trimoelja also asked Dibyo to verify the testimony of two
housemaids of Judi Susanto that Marsinah was never brought to
Judi's house and kept there for a few days before being taken to
another place.

The murder investigation has been full of controversy since
the beginning. The arrest of nine defendants in October 1993 was
controversial because they were abducted and went missing for a
few days before the police announced they had been arrested.

Their trials were also filled with controversy as all of the
defendants alleged that they were tortured by the investigators
into confessing a crime they never committed.

Authorities have reopened the investigation, even though the
Supreme Court has made it clear that released suspects cannot be
charged a second time for the same crime.

Judi Susanto, director of the company and alleged mastermind
of the murder, was acquitted by the Supreme Court of all charges
in November 1994. Another person allegedly involved in the case,
Mutiari, secretary to the company, was acquitted later in the
same year.

The remaining seven defendants, all of them the factory's
employees, were acquitted by the Supreme Court in May 1995. (imn)