Marsinah convictions overturned

Marsinah convictions overturned

JAKARTA (JP): Seven people convicted last year by lower courts
in East Java for the 1993 murder of labor activist Marsinah
walked out of Surabaya correctional institutions yesterday after
the Supreme Court ruled to acquit them all.

Another woman who has already served seven months in prison
for allegedly being an accessory to the murder was also acquitted
by the Court.

The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) in Jakarta
yesterday said the acquittals were a matter of course because the
East Java High Court in November has already exonerated Judi
Susanto, the director of the watchmaking company where Marsinah
worked and alleged mastermind behind the murder.

Judi was released immediately after the November ruling. He
had been sentenced earlier to 17 years imprisonment, the stiffest
jail term handed among the nine defendants.

Ironically, the East Java High Court upheld the guilty
verdicts for the other eight alleged accomplices. Their cases
were then referred to the Supreme Court.

The other eight -- executives and employees at the company --
are Yudi Astono (four years imprisonment), Bambang Wuryantoyo (12
years), Widayat (12 years), A.S. Prayogi (12 years), Karyono
Wongso (13 years), Soewono (12 years) Soeprapto (12 years), and
Mutiari, the only woman defendant (seven months).

The Antara news agency reported yesterday that the Supreme
Court sent out facsimiles on Wednesday to the wardens of the
Sidoarjo and Medaeng correctional institutions in Surabaya and
the chief of the Surabaya District Court ordering them to release
the seven defendants.

In the facsimile, signed by Director of Criminal Affairs
Sujati Soedarmoko, the Supreme Court ruled that there was no
evidence to indict them on the murder charges.

Marsinah's badly mutilated body was found in May 1993, a few
days after she organized a workers strike at PT Catur Putra Surya
which is owned by Judi Susanto.

The murder provoked an outcry from local labor organizations
as well as international human rights organizations who called on
the authorities to bring the killers to justice.

Given the tense relations between management and workers at
the company, the owner and executives of the company became prime
suspects in the killing.

The arrests of the nine defendants in October 1993 was equally
controversial. The nine defendants were abducted and went missing
for a few days until police announced that they had been
arrested.

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

Their allegations prompted an investigation by the National
Commission of Human Rights. The commission in its findings said
there were indications that the defendants' rights had been
violated and that the courts might be trying the wrong people.

The commission's recommendations were largely ignored by the
authorities who insisted that they had the real murderers.

A local Army captain was sentenced to nine months imprisonment
after the Surabaya military tribunal found him guilty of failing
to report his knowledge of the impending murders to his
superiors.

Antara reported that the seven civilian defendants left the
correctional institutions in the early hours yesterday.

Yudi Astono was picked up by his wife and his lawyers from the
Sidoarjo penitentiary.

The other six left the Madaeng penitentiary, also greeted by
their relatives and lawyers.

The seven did not directly go to their respective homes.
Instead, they proceeded to Hotel Heleconia in Surabaya to
celebrate by taking a bath together, according to the report.

YLBHI in its statement yesterday called on the police to
reopen the murder case in the wake of the Supreme Court's
decision to exonerate all the defendants. (emb)