Police to catch pimp's backers, if any
Police to catch pimp's backers, if any
JAKARTA (JP): City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto
said police are conducting an investigation to locate backers of
Hartono, a pimp who was captured in a raid last week, and will
send them to court if there is enough evidence to prove having
backed the suspect's sex business.
"So far, however, he (Hartono) insists he has no backers and
nobody claims to back him up," Hindarto said Monday in Lido, West
Java, during the opening of the police cadet course.
Hartono Setyawan, 42, who was notoriously known as an
untouchable pimp of high-class call-girls for two decades, was
captured by city police Wednesday afternoon at his mansion in the
Pondok Indah housing complex for running prostitution in a house
on Jl. Prapanca, South Jakarta.
Aside from Jakarta, Hartono also ran other high-class brothels
in Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, and Denpasar, all which had been
reportedly closed down by police after his arrest on Wednesday.
Many people believed that Hartono, an Indonesian of Chinese
ancestry, had recruited a handful of backers to protect the
illegal businesses he established in the 70s.
It is felt that if he had no backing he would have been
incarcerated instead of only being put on two years probation by
the South Jakarta district court 1986 for similar charges.
However, Hindarto said, it was difficult to verify the
speculation since Hartono insisted on the non-existence of any
backers.
In a related development, Lt. Col. Gories Mere, chief of the
General Crime office at the city police headquarters, denied the
rumor circulating among the public that Hartono had been released
on bail.
"He is still here," Mere said, herding reporters to see for
themselves that the suspect, who was clad in black sweat shirt
and denim pants, was in police custody.
If found guilty, Hartono can be sentenced to 16 months
imprisonment according to criminal code's chapter 296, which
forbids sexual procurement.
But Chapter 506 of the code, which was used by the South
Jakarta district court in sentencing the suspect in 1986 to two
years probation for similar charges, classifies the offense as a
misdemeanor.
Meanwhile AMPI, a youth organization affiliated to the ruling
Golkar, has thrown their weight behind police on the arrest of
Hartono.
"We fully support the measure," Irianto H. Zainal, the deputy
chief of the Jakarta chapter of AMPI, who visited the city police
headquarters to express support to police over Hartono's arrest.
The youth organization underlined the necessity to impose
heavy sentences on people involved in the sex business in an
effort to protect the younger generation because the punishment
on pimps under the existing criminal code is too mild. (jsk)