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)