Police reopening old cases against Gus Dur

Police reopening old cases against Gus Dur

JAKARTA (JP): After long being on the back burner, the
National Police have recently decided to revive the investigation
of a number of old cases against former president Abdurrahman
"Gus Dur" Wahid.

"We have studied all the cases and we think that the public
are entitled to legal certainty with regard to the complaints
they made to us," National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Didi
Widayadi told reporters last week.

The old cases include the defamation complaints filed by Parni
Hadi, the former chief of the state news agency Antara, in May
2000 following his dismissal, and by Soeripto, the suspended
secretary-general of the forestry ministry, in February 2001.

But why now?

Didi has flatly denied the rumors that the police are seeking
revenge against Abdurrahman, or Gus Dur as he is familiarly
known, by reviving the old cases against him.

Soeripto's lawyer Effendi Saman commented, "I think it is
because now Bimantoro has confidence about his own position and
there are no political barriers preventing the police from
summoning Gus Dur."

"I doubted that the police would act upon our case at the time
it was filed. But I had confidence that once Gus Dur resigned,
our case, which has been left sitting for six months by the
police, would be reopened and seriously addressed," Effendi told
The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

National Police chief Bimantoro, who replaced Gen. Rusdihardjo
last Sept. 18, has confirmed the police plan.

He himself was involved in various standoffs with Gus Dur,
including disagreements over the then president's order to arrest
the fugitive Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, the president's
security policy in Aceh and his plan to issue an emergency decree
as a way of dissolving the House of Representatives and the
People's Consultative Assembly, both of which were planning to
impeach him.

Bimantoro was eventually sacked for refusing to resign only
days before Gus Dur was replaced as president by Megawati
Soekarnoputri. But Bimantoro, with the support of both the House
and the People's Consultative Assembly, refused to obey the
president's order, forcing Gus Dur to appoint Chaeruddin Ismail
to take command of the police with the rank of deputy chief of
the National Police.

Lawyer Effendi did not rule out the possibility that his
client's action was being used by the police to exact revenge on
Gus Dur, but said that whatever the motive behind the reopening
of his client's case, he strongly welcomed it.

"But we don't want to be involved in any kind of police
revenge. My sole objective is that my client's complaint is
processed by the police," he said.

He said that police should be careful about trying to reopen
old cases. "The Police should not misuse their current political
freedom."

When asked to comment, Soeripto admitted that he was happy to
hear that his case was to be reopened. "Whatever their motive, I
I appreciate it and look forward to cooperating with them (the
police)," Soeripto told the Post.

Separately, Parni's lawyer R. Akbar Lubis said that he also
welcomed the reopening of his client's case as long as the move
was made in accordance with the law.

"What we report to the police has to be separated from any
political or other interests so that whatever the motives behind
the police initiative are, we hope that the police only take the
side of legal necessity," he stressed.

Akbar said that the police should never delay the
investigation of complaints for as long as they had been doing
under Gus Dur's administration as what was at issue was the right
of members of the public to see justice being done.

"We only hope that there will be no more people like us
waiting for 18 months to have their complaints processed," Akbar
remarked.

"We're glad that the police are finally going to deal with our
complaint. But we don't want them (the police) using such
complaints as ammunition to exact revenge against others," he
concluded. (emf)