Lawyer wants one trial for three drug dealers
Lawyer wants one trial for three drug dealers
JAKARTA (JP): The lawyer of an alleged drug dealer
asked the Central Jakarta District Court yesterday to try his
client and another two alleged dealers at the same time.
"Such a trial will make it clear who the mastermind, the actor
or the accomplice is," said lawyer Sofyan Taher, using Latin-
derived legal terminologies respectively as daders, mede daders
and medeplich.
Earlier reports said that the Central Jakarta Prosecutor
Office had decided to separate the trial of defendants Muhammad
Freddy (alias A Thing, 44), Malaysian Tham Tuck Yin (alias A
Tjai, 29) and Thai Sae Lim Iaw (alias A Tham, 50) due to each of
them being tried for different charges.
Police said the three were arrested during a drug deal on May
11 in Hotel Indonesia, Central Jakarta. A later raid on A Thing's
house netted 29 kilogram of heroin.
The market value of the heroin was estimated at Rp 58 billion
(US$27 million). Police claim it is the largest drug bust ever
made in Indonesia.
A Thing brought six small packets of heroin, apparently as
samples, to Hotel Indonesia and left the remaining 54 packets in
his house.
Taher, the lawyer of A Thing, also told presiding Judge Leo
Hutagalung yesterday that the Central Jakarta District Court has
no right to hold the trial.
He said that 90 percent of the seized heroin was stored in the
house of A Thing at Jl. Patriot 29 in Bekasi, West Java.
"Instead of the Central Jakarta District Court, it is the
Bekasi one which has the authority to try the defendant," Taher
said in his defense statement.
Prosecutor T. Zakaria said last week that the 29 kilograms of
heroin was smuggled from Phuket, a tourist resort in Thailand,
into Belawan seaport in North Sumatra, by A Tjai.
A Tjai then arrived in Pulo Gadung terminal in Jakarta on Jan.
24, after riding a bus from Medan.
Zakaria said in his indictment that the contacts of A Tjai in
Jakarta were A Thing, A Tham and Thamanoon Saepho.
Saepho, allegedly the mastermind of the drug deal, is still at
large.
Syndicate
Police allege that A Tham and Saepho are members of an
international narcotic syndicate.
"During police questioning, the three suspects remained tight-
lipped and gave no information that would help us find their
other accomplices or any information of their network," said a
police officer.
While A Thing kept the heroin, the other three were busy
looking for buyers, traveling between Jakarta and Bangkok a
number of times before arranging a meeting with a potential buyer
in Hotel Indonesia, he said.
Judge Hutagalung adjourned the trial of A Thing until next
Monday to give prosecutor Zakaria ample time to prepare a written
response to the defense statement by Taher.
The court will today conduct the second trial session of A
Tham presided over by Judge R.P.A. Mangkudiningrat.
The trial of A Tjai will begin on Thursday, presided over by
Judge Tua Radja Siregar.
Under the Indonesian 1976 Anti-Narcotic Law, an alleged drug
dealer may face the death penalty or life imprisonment.
Two Thai nationals and an Indian citizen were sentenced to
death by a court in Medan, North Sumatra, on Sep. 9, 1994 after
being found guilty of smuggling 12.19 kilograms of heroin.
A Thai sailor, Kamjai Khong Thavorn, was also sentenced to
death in 1988 by a court in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, after
being found guilty of smuggling 17.76 kilograms of heroin.
Earlier in 1985 a Malaysian, Chan Tin Chong, better known as
Steven, also was sentenced to death by the West Jakarta District
Court after being found guilty of masterminding a smuggling
attempt of 420 grams of heroin.
In Indonesia, death sentences are usually carried out by a
military firing squad at dawn in a disclosed place, usually one
or two days after the family is given a chance to meet with the
convict for the last time. (09)