Pranowo rejects rights charge

Pranowo rejects rights charge

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Defense lawyers for former Jakarta military police chief Maj.
Gen. (ret) Pranowo asked the ad hoc rights tribunal for the
Tanjung Priok massacre to reject the prosecutors' indictment
against him on Tuesday, saying it lacked legal merit.

Pranowo is charged with the unlawful arrest of up to 169
civilians, including Muslim politician A.M. Fatwa, and of
detaining them at Military Police Headquarters on Jl. Sultan
Agung, Central Jakarta, without warrants.

According to Yan Juanda Saputra, one of the defense lawyers,
the indictment was absurd because it failed to disclose the names
of Pranowo's subordinates for whom he was allegedly responsible.

"The indictment does not specifically reveal the names of
Pranowo's subordinates who allegedly tortured the civilians who
were at the time being detained at the Military Police
Headquarters since Sept. 13, 1984.

"Moreover, prosecutors cannot blame my client for violence
endured by the civilians when they were being detained at another
military detention center in Cimanggis, Bogor regency, West Java,
because it was the head of the center who was supposedly
responsible for the alleged brutality," Juanda told the court
presided over by Adriani Nurdin.

The lawyers also questioned whether or not the court had the
right to hear the case, which occurred almost two-decades ago,
arguing that the country's legal code did not recognize a
retroactive principle.

Indeed, the court could not try the people unless there were
regulations that stipulated the violations as crimes, the lawyers
said.

According to the prosecutors, the detention period varied from
one day to 15 days. Pranowo then moved all the detainees to the
Cimanggis military detention center and kept them there for up to
three months.

All of the detainees were crammed into one windowless cell and
were deprived contact with their families. Soldiers from the
Military Police unit also tortured them, causing some to suffer
serious injuries, according to the prosecutors' indictment.

But the lawyers argued that Pranowo "had just received a
request from the police to put suspected Tanjung Priok civilians
in his custody due to a certain legal consideration."

"The civilians were charged with subversion, instead of
ordinary crimes. Therefore, the police, along with the
prosecutors from the Attorney General's Office, decided to place
them in military detention."

Prosecutors charged Pranowo with violating Articles 7 and 42
of the Human Rights Law No. 26/2000 on crimes against humanity,
which carries a minimum jail term of 10 years and a maximum
penalty of death.

The Tanjung Priok killings were reportedly triggered by a
military soldier who entered a prayer room (musholla) near the
port of Tanjung Priok on Sept. 7, 1984, without obeying certain
religious protocols.

He went in to tear down posters considered by the government
as extremist in nature, but he did not take off his boots, an act
regarded to be tantamount to desecration in a Muslim holy place.

Witnesses alleged the soldier smeared drain water on the walls
as well. An outraged group of people then burnt the soldier's
motorcycle. Four people, including the musholla's administrator,
were arrested.

Five days later, Amir Biki, a local Muslim activist, led some
1,500 fellow civilians in a march to the nearby police station to
put pressure on authorities to free the four detainees.

Eyewitnesses said that soldiers opened fire, killing scores of
protesters. Biki was among the dead. Many other demonstrators
were detained and allegedly tortured in connection with the
demonstration.

There is conflicting information on the number of victims in
the incident. The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
HAM) put the death toll at 33, but military authorities said only
nine people were killed. Families of the victims, however, claim
that almost 400 Muslim protesters were killed during the
incident.