Not over yet
Not over yet
Marsinah, the murdered labor activist, is long gone. But her specter, raised once again last week when the Supreme Court exonerated seven people previously convicted of complicity in the crime, may be with us for a long time to come.
More than two years after the killing, the memory of Marsinah has yet to fade. Indeed, her death seems to continue to cause fresh ripple effects that raise new questions about the current state of Indonesia's legal and judiciary system, as well as the nation's human rights conditions.
To briefly freshen our memory of the case: On May 9, 1993, two years to the day last Tuesday, Marsinah's mutilated body was found in a forest near Nganjuk in East Java. Police investigations brought to light the fact that she was killed some time between May 5 and May 8, 1993.
Prosecutors were quick to point their finger at Judi Susanto, the owner of PT Catur Putra Surya, a Surabaya-based factory making spare parts for watches. According to the prosecution team handling the case at that time, a scheme to kill the labor activist was worked out by the management, after a demonstration led by Marsinah was staged by hundreds of workers on May 3 to demand higher wages.
Prompted by public demands that the death of the labor activist be investigated, the authorities started to work on the case and Judi Santoso was arrested for allegedly masterminding the murder. Not long afterwards, his assistant, Judi Astono, was arrested for complicity.
Judi Susanto was eventually sentenced to 17 years imprisonment for ordering the slaying and Judi Astono to four years in prison for allowing his office to be used for plotting the murder. In November 1994, however, Judi Susanto was acquitted by the East Java High Court for lack of proof. Oddly, on that same day, the same High Court endorsed the district court's verdict on his alleged accomplice, Judi Astono.
Further doubts on the authorities' handling of the case arose when all of the defendants in the case retracted their earlier statements admitting to complicity, claiming they were forced by interrogators to sign the confessions under coercion.
Under such circumstances, what was the public to believe? Was torture used to extract the admissions? Judi Susanto was reported to have said at the time: "I would not only have admitted to killing one Marsinah. If it was a hundred Marsinahs, I would have admitted to killing them, too. Who can bear such torture."
In any case, the exoneration of the seven defendants by the Supreme Court last week certainly opens up a good number of questions and possibilities. As things now stand, what is one to think of the testimonies of Lasmini and Susiawati, Judi Susanto's two housemaids, who swore under oath that they were witnesses to certain aspects of the crime?
And what about the testimonies given by other witnesses for the prosecution in the case? Wijono Subagyo, one of the defense lawyers in the case, is reported to have stated his belief that with the exoneration of the defendants by the Supreme Court, all the witnesses heard in the Surabaya district court can be considered to have committed perjury and could face legal action.
Thus, the Marsinah case may be far from over. Hopefully a good lesson will be learned: There must be better, surer ways to settle a case than by coercion, or even torture.