Oki to face 5-year imprisonment

Oki to face 5-year imprisonment

JAKARTA (JP): Public Prosecutor Abdul Muis Gassing demanded at the South Jakarta District Court on Tuesday that Harnoko Dewantoro, alias Oki, be sentenced to five years imprisonment for falsifying passports and repeatedly using more than one passport.

The prosecutor told presiding judge Doris A.A. Taulo that the false passports were used in the period between July 1991 to June 1993 at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta, Polonia airport in Medan, North Sumatra, and a number of places in the United States.

Oki, 30, obtained the first passport in July 1991 from the South Jakarta Immigration Office, using the name of Oki Harnoko. With this passport, valid until 1997, Oki left for the United States in October 1992, and arrived back in February 1993, through the Soekarno-Hatta airport.

In June 1993, Oki obtained another passport at the Indonesian consulate in Chicago, which was valid for two years. He then used the two-year passport to enter Indonesia the following month, through the Polonia airport.

A few weeks later, he used the same document to go to Malaysia, via Soekarno-Hatta airport, and arrived back a week later through the Polonia airport.

Using fake passports, falsifying passport applications and possessing more than one valid passport are in violation of Items A, B, and C in Article 55 of Immigration Law Number 2, issued in 1992.

According to the prosecutor, the defendant's alleged passport forgery degrades Indonesia's name, especially the Directorate General of Immigration, of the Ministry of Justice, in the international forum.

Responding to Gassing's prosecution, Oki, who was accompanied by his lawyers Tommy Sihotang and Ruhut Sitompul, said he will make a defense.

The trial was adjourned until May 18. (29)