New inquiry into death of activist

New inquiry into death of activist

JAKARTA (JP): East Java Police said yesterday that they will
set up a special team to investigate who really murdered labor
activist Marsinah.

"We will reopen investigations following the exoneration by
the Supreme Court of all defendants of all charges in the murder
of labor activist Marsinah," East Java Police chief Maj. Gen.
Roesmanhadi said in Surabaya.

The Court's decision was warmly welcomed by human rights
activists and legal observers.

Marzuki Darusman of the National Commission on Human Rights,
legislators B.N. Marbun and Soesanto Bangoennagoro, law professor
Satjipto Rahardjo and East Java Military Commander Maj. Gen. Imam
Utomo all agreed that the police should reopen the investigation.

Marzuki, deputy chairman of the rights commission, said the
Supreme Court's decision meant that the police should reopen the
investigation without waiting for any written orders from the
Supreme Court.

"When the rights commission sent a fact-finding team to East
Java last year, we cautioned the local authorities that the nine
defendants were not the collective murderers," he told The
Jakarta Post, adding that the real murderers remained at large.

"The police can use reports from the public, the defendants'
lawyers, and the rights commission's fact-finding team as
references," he said.

Marsinah was found dead after leading a workers' strike at PT
Catur Putra Surya, a watch-making factory in Sidoarjo, East Java.
Her badly mutilated body was found on May 9, 1993, in an
abandoned shack near Nganjuk in East Java.

Judi Susanto, director of the company and alleged mastermind
behind the murder, was released in November, immediately after
the East Java High Court's ruling, saying that he was not guilty.
He had earlier been sentenced to 17 years imprisonment, the
stiffest jail term handed down in the case.

Mutiari, secretary to the company, who had been sentenced to
seven months in prison by the Sidoarjo District Court for
allegedly being an accessory to the murder was also acquitted by
the Court. She was released from the Medaeng prison in August
last year because she had completed her six-month jail term.

The other seven defendants, who were released by the Supreme
Court on Wednesday, are all employees of the company involved:
Yudi Astono (sentenced to four years imprisonment prior to being
exonerated), Bambang Wuryantoyo (12 years), Widayat (12 years),
A.S. Prayogi (12 years), Karyono Wongso (13 years), Soewono (12
years), and Soeprapto (12 years).

Marzuki said the exoneration of the nine defendants indicated
that torture, which used to be employed by investigators, was not
effective in extracting information from a witness or a suspect.

He believed that the ruling would restore the public's trust
in the Supreme Court, after a series of earlier disappointments
caused by the Chief Justices' controversial decisions.

Maj. Gen. Imam Utomo said the release of the nine defendants
did not mean that the murder case was closed. "We will not stop
the case but will bring either the previous defendants or new
ones into the investigation," he said, as quoted by Antara.

He asserted that the case was quite difficult, saying that in
such a murder case it sometimes took years to uncover the
murderer.

B.N. Marbun said the release of the defendants indicated that
previous investigations -- which, he said, seemed to have been
engineered -- had failed to uncover who the real murderer was.

Marbun said the Supreme Court's decision could help to restore
the public's confidence in the Indonesian judicial system.

Soesanto Bangoennagoro said the case was not final until the
real murderer was sentenced by the court.

He supported Imam's statement that those just released could
be charged again if the court later found the real murderer and
could prove that they were involved in the murder.

He said that such a case, in which a court releases all of the
defendants because of lack of evidence and witnesses, should not
occur again.

Satjipto Rahardjo said he saw nothing extraordinary in the
Supreme Court's decision. "It is common that a court's decision
is either in favor of or against the defendant."

However, he said, since it was an important and interesting
case, the Supreme Court's decision was seen as helpful for the
image of the Indonesian judicial system, which has long been
considered ineffectual by the people.

He said that the people just released should not be put under
investigation again. "The police investigators should look for
other suspects in the murder case," he told The Post. (imn)