Police ban 'Tempo' lawyer from interrogation of experts
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Police prevented on Tuesday a lawyer from accompanying four experts who were expected to speak on behalf of the weekly news magazine Tempo, whose chief editor Bambang Harymurti and reporter Ahmad Taufik are being sued for libel.
"I was stopped from attending the questioning by police investigators even though I had insisted on accompanying my clients," Darwin Siregar of the Todung Mulya Lubis law firm told The Jakarta Post.
Darwin said police prohibited him from accompanying his clients, Leo Batubara and R.H. Siregar, from the Press Council.
The two men were asked to appear as experts on press law by Bambang and Taufik.
In addition to Leo and Siregar, Bambang and Taufik have also called two other experts, Anton Moeljono, a linguist and Mas Achmad Santosa, a law expert.
The case against Bambang and Taufik was filed by tycoon Tomy Winata, the owner of the Artha Graha group, following an article that appeared in the March 3 edition of Tempo, titled Ada Tomy di Tenabang (Tomy is in Tenabang), which calls Tomy a "great scavenger".
Darwin said that the police allowed him to accompany Leo Batubara in the first session of the interrogation. Leo arrived at 10 a.m., while Siregar arrived at 2:30 p.m.
After lunch, police investigators continued to question Leo and started questioning Siregar, but several officers prohibited Darwin from accompanying his clients during the interrogation.
"They simply said that they were only abiding by their boss's orders," Darwin said.
Because of the incident, Darwin said, his law firm had decided to cancel its proposal to present three other experts in the police investigation.
"We let the interrogation of Leo proceed without the presence of a lawyer as they were already halfway through," he said.
For the three other experts, the lawyer said he would ask the court to summon them to testify in the trial later.
City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prasetyo could not be immediately reached for comment, but he had said earlier in the day that police had questioned at least 20 witnesses.
He said police had completed their interrogation of Bambang and Taufik, who have been charged with Article 310 on defamation and Article 311 on libel in the Criminal Code. If convicted, they could face a maximum sentence of four years in jail.
They are also charged with violating Article 5 (1) of the Press Law, which carries a maximum punishment of Rp 500 million (US$56,100) in fines.
On March 8, about 200 people led by supporters of Tomy, who is known for his close association with the military, attacked the offices of Tempo, despite the presence of dozens of police officers.
In a related development, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) stated that they would sue the police for allowing the incident to happen. AJI's Committee for the Defense of Press Freedom (KPKP) will file a lawsuit against the National Police at the Central Jakarta District Court on Wednesday.
Taufik said the police did not do anything to prevent the attack on March 8. He said some of Tomy's bodyguards forced Bambang and Taufik to go with them to the police station to settle the case. At the police station, the officers also allowed the men to assault the journalists, he said.