Police 'breached professional ethics'

Police 'breached professional ethics'

JAKARTA (JP): A lawyer representing the Volunteers for Humanity accused the police on Thursday of violating professional ethics in its handling of a murder case that rights activists allege is linked to an investigation into sexual assaults and rapes of Chinese-Indonesians during the May riots.

Munir, who is also coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, expressed dismay in a media conference how the police had issued information to the public before completing the investigation.

"(The police's public) analysis on the background of the victim (amounts to) open terror. This pattern is often used by the police to (steer the public to) conclude that the victim is an easy target of assaults," Munir charged.

He was referring to psychology professor Sarlito Wirawan. Sarlito, who, citing the results of an autopsy on Ita (the 18- year-old high school student who was found murdered with multiple stab wounds last Friday), said early on Sunday that she had been sexually active and it was also likely she was a drug addict.

Sarlito was asked by the police to comment on the victim and the suspected killer after the police announced they had arrested an alleged common thief for the murder.

Dr. Mun'im Idris, one of two forensic experts who performed the post-mortem examination on Ita, had earlier told the media that certain drugs were found in Ita's blood and there were signs of sodomy.

"The public and Volunteers for Humanity have the right to ask the IPI (Indonesian Psychologists Association) and the IDI (Indonesian Medical Association) to question Mun'im and Sarlito for violating organizational and professional ethics. We will ask the two organizations to review their conduct," Munir said.

"The police must be questioned too as they were the party who invited and gave room for the two to comment," he added.

The police have said Ita's murder was a "pure crime" and have threatened to take legal action against anyone who trying to politicize it.

Officers have also denied that the murder had any link to the explosive rape issue and claimed certain parties or individuals were trying to attract publicity to revive interest in the May riots.

Human rights activists, including the Volunteers for Humanity, have said they believe Ita was one of the victims of the May rapes and that the murder was part of systematic terror against activists investigating the violence during the unrest.

"The assassination of Ita can't be simply parted from the intimidation and terror that continuously shakes other members of the Volunteers for Humanity," the group's leader, Catholic priest Sandyawan Sumardi, said.

On Monday the arrested suspect, Suryadi, alias Otong, a 22- year-old neighbor, confessed at a media conference held at the city police headquarters that he murdered Ita after she caught him trying to rob her house.

Ita's older sister Evi Suriadinata, 26, also went to the police headquarters to back the police's stand on the murder.

Munir said it was unusual for the police to present the suspect to the public.

"The suspect has the right to be protected and considered innocent until proven guilty," Munir added.

However, Mun'im said Munir's charges against him were groundless, and said they were made only after the Volunteers for Humanity found the results of the post mortem examination were not as they had expected.

He recalled that on the night of Ita's murder, he received a message from one of the volunteers through his beeper saying that Ita was murdered and sodomized.

Mun'im did not name the person who beeped him.

"The team itself had apparently suggested that Ita was murdered and sodomized. However, police were not certain that the signs of the sexual assaults were from the mid-May riot. That's why police kept rejecting the allegation that Ita was a rape victim in the riot," he said.

The government formed a join fact-finding team in July to investigate the causes of the May riots which some say were organized.

The team, whose members include government officials as well as security officers and human rights activists, including Sandyawan, is expected to issue its findings on Oct. 23.

Many ethnic Chinese homes and businesses were targeted by mobs in the violence that left about 1,200 people dead and in turn led to the resignation of the authoritarian president Soeharto.

Activists, including the Volunteers for Humanity, have said that 168 women and children were raped or sexually assaulted during the riots; 20 of them reportedly died or committed suicide as a result of their ordeals. (byg/ivy)