Police charged for wrongful arrest

JAKARTA (JP): Two journalists and a press activist being tried on charges of inciting public hostility towards the government accused the police yesterday of wrongful arrest and demanded that the court acquit them.

"Police investigators wrongfully arrested our clients," Rita Serena Kolibonso, one of the lawyers representing the three defendants, told the Central Jakarta District Court.

Ahmad Taufik and Eko Maryadi -- both journalists of the banned Tempo newsweekly -- and clerical worker and press activist Danang Kukuh Wardoyo are currently on trial for distributing copies of the unlicensed Independen bulletin to the public.

The prosecutors said the publication sowed hatred and hostility towards the government.

The magazine was published by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), which was formed by a number of young journalists discontented with the Association of Indonesian Journalists' response, or the lack of it, to the government's closure of Tempo and two other newsweeklies in June last year.

Ahmad and Eko are being tried in one suit, while Danang is being tried separately in the same court.

Rita said police had not shown the accused any arrest warrant when they came to take them into custody.

Ahmad was caught and brought to the City Police Headquarters together with Danang after a reception hosted by AJI at the Wisata International Hotel in March. Eko was picked up from AJI's secretariat on the same night.

Rita demanded the production of the document that empowered police to hold the three defendants in custody.

She also argued that the evidence relied upon by the police was inadmissible because it had been seized from AJI's secretariat during a police search that was not accompanied by a court warrant.

"Article 33 of the Criminal Code Procedure stipulates that police must have a court warrant to search a building, and if the accused or the building's owner agrees (to allow the search in the absence of a warrant), the police must be accompanied by two witnesses," she said.

Rita said the prosecutors, in their dossiers, misquoted statements from articles in Independen in a misleading fashion.

Mohammad Assegaf, another lawyer representing the accused, said the procedural violations and erroneous quotations should mean that the prosecutors' charges are rendered void.

"The judges should dismiss the charges," he said.(imn).