Lawyer terrorized by client's husband

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A lawyer who is handling the divorce case of a battered women has complained about being terrorized by the angry husband, the police and the military.

Asnifriyanti Damanik, the director of the Legal Aid Institute of the Indonesian Women's Association for Justice, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that last week six men had come to her office and when they discovered she and her client were not in had demanded details of their whereabouts.

The pair and a relative of the client were being driven in a taxi from the South Jakarta District Court to her nearby office in Kramatjati, East Jakarta, when the men had found them.

Asnifriyanti said the trio, including the client, Ade, 36, had then driven towards Ade's relatives but when the men continued following had decided to go to the Ciracas police station in East Jakarta for protection.

The men - including Ade's husband, Sudaryana - had immediately besieged the three women inside the police station, Asnifriyanti said.

Sudaryana told the police that Ade had stolen his jewelry, and told them that he had reported the theft to the Kebayoran Lama police.

Despite Asnifriyanti's protests, the Ciracas police believed that Ade was a thief and called the Kebayoran Lama police to come and collect her.

While they were waiting, a group of six uniformed military personnel arrived at the request of Sudaryana, who apparently knew them well, to "face" Asnifriyanti.

Later in the evening, the Kebayoran Lama police came to take Ade to its office to interrogate her.

"We really feel concerned with this terrorism against the victim as well as the lawyer," Asnifriyanti said, criticizing the police and the military for their parts in the scheme.

Asnifriyanti said Ade, who had been married to Sudaryana for 10 years, left home on Sept. 27 last year as she had enough of being beaten by her husband.

She sought help from the institute and was given refuge in its shelter house.

Her only daughter later followed her. Before she came to see her mother, she took gold jewelry weighing less than 10 grams from the house which she gave to her mother.

Asnifriyanti said Ade could not be charged with stealing from her own house because as a wife she still had the right to be in her own home.