Police hunt for men threatening Acan's relatives
Police hunt for men threatening Acan's relatives
JAKARTA (JP): Bekasi police are hunting a number of men believed to have intimidated relatives of Acan, whose wife and daughters were raped by a gang of robbers last year.
Bekasi Police Chief Lt. Col. Elfrizo Tobing told The Jakarta Post on Saturday the intimidators are the relatives of the 11 defendants being tried for the gang rape and robbery.
Three of Acan's relatives, Namit, Arief and Ali, reported to the Bekasi police on Thursday that a number of men, claiming to be the relatives of the gang members, demanded that the victims' family members withdraw the charges.
The three live in Bogor but as the case is handled by the Bekasi authorities, they reported the intimidation to the Bekasi police.
Last Thursday the defendants' relatives became outraged and threw shoes at the prosecutors who asked the court to sentence the defendants to 12 and 16 years imprisonment.
They threw the shoes at Prosecutors T. Baringin Udjung and Novimar Ali as they left the courtroom at the Bekasi District Court on Thursday. Everything was under control when the head of the Bekasi prosecutors' office, Chairuman Harahap, arrived at the court.
Tobing said that his office had coordinated with the Bogor police.
A reliable police source told the Post on Saturday that the intimidation was led by an ex-serviceman. "He is a relative of one of the defendants, the officer added.
"We don't care who they are," Tobing said when asked for confirmation. "What we need to do is to find these men and ask them to take responsibility for the crime they have committed. Intimidating people is a crime."
According to the prosecutors, nine of the 11 defendants who are between 17 and 23 years old, were found guilty of raping Acan's wife and their two daughters and stealing their jewelry in July last year at their home in a remote village of Cimatis, Bekasi, some 30 km southeast of the city.
It was only proven that the two others accompanied the group.
At the first trial of the case in December, courtroom visitors attacked the lawyers of the 11 suspects twice when the lawyers attended the hearings of the lawsuit against the Bekasi police over what the lawyers called the unlawful arrest of their clients.
Most of the attackers were incensed at the nature of the crime for which the suspects had been arrested.
The defense lawyers then withdrew their lawsuit against the local police, saying that the authorities had failed to protect them. (bsr)