Man gets seven months in jail for bomb blast

JAKARTA (JP): Central Jakarta District Court sentenced a man to seven months and 24 days in prison on Tuesday for failing to report the presence of a homemade bomb, which exploded at a low- cost apartment in Tanah Tinggi last January.

Presiding judge Dalil Ahmad said Agus Priyono, 30, was guilty of violating Article 165 of the Criminal Code since the defendant knew about the bomb but did not report it to the police.

The sentence automatically allows Priyono, who was arrested shortly after the Jan. 18 explosion and detained since the following day, to walk free as of Tuesday.

The ruling on Priyono is slightly lower than the maximum punishment of nine months in jail or a fine of up to Rp 4,500 as stipulated in the article.

According to Dalil, the panel of judges reached their decision on the grounds that the defendant was young, had no previous record and needs medical treatment for hepatitis B.

"As a student activist, the defendant must have known about the explosive device kept in a box but he did not report it" Dalil told the court.

The judges did not disclose which university Priyono attended, nor the name of his political organization, but reliable sources said the defendant was a university dropout.

Budiman Sudjatmiko, chairman of the Democratic People's Party (PRD), which was banned under the Soeharto regime, has denied Priyono is a party member.

Two other suspects in the explosion, which occurred in a rented room located on the fifth floor of the apartment building, are still at large.

They have been identified as Prayogo and Cony. One of the prosecutors, Y.W. Mere, said in August that Cony was an alias of Andi Arief, chairman of the Indonesian Students Solidarity for Democracy (SMID), one of PRD's affiliates, and that he was at the apartment when the explosion occurred.

Mere's explanation has been confirmed by Priyono's lawyer, Daniel Panjaitan from the Jakarta's Legal Aid Institute.

It remains unclear why Arief has not had any changes leveled against him.

During Tuesday's trial, the judge read the decision a few minutes after the defendant's lawyer, Erna Ratnaningsih, also from the legal aid institute, read the plea.

Erna told the court that the box which contained the explosive device belonged to Prayogo.

"As an activist, Priyono never asked about other activists' private belongings. Many activists visited the apartment before the blast, so he could not ask about every belonging carried in by guests," she said.

However, both defendant and prosecutor Agus Widodo accepted the judge's decision.

Priyono plans to soon visit his mother in Magelang, Central Java, and later return to the city to participate in other student activist movements.

According to the indictment, Priyono was invited by Prayogo to stay at the apartment. The two, along with Cony, stayed at the apartment for 10 days prior to the blast.

The indictment stated that Priyono was asked by Prayogo to monitor the latest situation at various places in the capital, such as Atrium Senen shopping center and Megaria building in Central Jakarta, and report his findings to him.

But there was no mention in the indictment about whether the defendant and his friends planned to bomb any buildings.

According to the indictment, the three had 40 lamps, eight boxes of detonators and eight bottles of gun powder in their apartment.

The homemade bomb exploded at about 6 p.m. during the Ramadhan fasting month, when the three men were resting on the floor waiting to break the fast.

Priyono was arrested but the other two managed to escape. (jun)