Man gets 10 months for theft

JAKARTA (JP): The Central Jakarta District Court sentenced on Tuesday a man to 10 months in jail after it found him guilty of stealing office furniture and kitchenware from a building owned by his parents in June last year.

Presiding judge Sri Endang Sumiarsih said the verdict passed against the man, an entrepreneur identified as Hartono Budiono, was based on the testimony of four witnesses and all available evidence.

Both the defendant and prosecutor Gusnani immediately asked for the right to appeal at the Jakarta High Court.

"On the night of June 8 last year, the defendant with the help of 15 people, broke the lock to a building on Jl. KH Mas Mansyur in Tanah Abang district, Central Jakarta, occupied by tenants PT Panasia Intersarana.

"They entered the building and moved all the office furniture and kitchenware out of it and loaded it into a truck," Judge Sumiarsih said.

She said according to the defendant the goods were being moved to a plot of land owned by PT Panasia Intersarana, located right behind the building, which also owned by the defendant's parents.

Before the judge read her verdict, Hartono was allowed to air his response to witnesses' testimonies in the previous hearings. He stressed the fact that he owned the building and the land it was located upon.

"How can you call it stealing when the goods were taken out of my building, located on my land?" Hartono said.

Sumiarsih argued that despite what he said, Hartono had violated Article 363 of the Criminal Code on stealing, which carries a maximum sentence of nine years in prison; and Article 406 of the Criminal Code on causing damage to material (the lock in this case), which carries a maximum sentence of two-years-and- eight-months imprisonment. (ylt)