Pakpahan seeks treatment abroad through rights body
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union has asked the National Commission on Human Rights to help its jailed leader, Muchtar Pakpahan, get medical treatment abroad.
Acting union leader Tohap Simanungkalit, accompanied yesterday by nine other members of the unrecognized union, said it was not possible to treat Pakpahan's illness here.
In its submission to the commission, the union included a medical report from physicians stating that Pakpahan needed a lung imagy fluorescence endoscopy -- treatment which is unavailable in Indonesia.
"For that reason, we ask the commission to recommend the Ministry of Justice grant him a travel permit," he said.
The treatment is available in Singapore, the United States and Canada, the submitted report said.
Pakpahan was sentenced to three years in jail in November 1994 for inciting riots in Medan. The High Court increased the sentence to four years.
But he was later released from jail after a three-member panel of Supreme Court justices led by Adi Andojo Soetjipto exonerated him from all charges after finding there was insufficient evidence to punish Pakpahan.
Former chief justice Soerjono, with colleagues Sarwata and Radja Palti Siregar, however, overturned Andojo's decision last October after they found mistakes in the implementation of the law.
As he had to serve his jail term, he was tried on subversion charges last year for his alleged involvement in the July 27, 1996, bloody riot.
Pakpahan was admitted to Cikini Hospital in Central Jakarta in March, four days after he yelled at a South Jakarta District Court judge for ignoring his deteriorating health.
The union's secretary-general Sunarti told The Jakarta Post that Pakpahan suffers from a lung tumor, a blood clot in the brain and appendicitis.
The commission's secretary-general Baharuddin Lopa said he would study the case and send a letter to the ministry.
Meanwhile Jakarta City Police handed over to the Bekasi Prosecutor's Office yesterday a Catholic priest accused of harboring three wanted Democratic People's Party (PRD) activists last year.
City Police spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said that the priest, Ignatius Sandyawan Sumardi, arrived at police headquarters at 10:30 a.m. to be taken to Bekasi.
Aritonang said the duty of police was only to hand over Sandyawan to the district court because the police had finished the dossiers.
Sandyawan allegedly harbored PRD leaders Budiman Sudjatmiko, Petrus H. Haryanto and Yakobus Eko Kurniawan, who had been found guilty of subversion in April, at the Bekasi home of his brother, Benny Sumardi.
He said if found guilty, Sandyawan would face a maximum penalty of nine months' imprisonment. (05/cst)