Prosecutor calls for Robot's trial

JAKARTA (JP): A state prosecutor urged the Central Jakarta District Court yesterday to continue to try Robot, the man accused of sexually assaulting and murdering 6 young boys.

Suriansyah urged Judge Sartono to ignore defense lawyers' demands to dismiss the case because of a lack of evidence and a weak dossier.

The defendant, 33-year old SW, alias Robot Gedek, from Pekalongan, Central Java, is accused of killing six boys aged between 11 and 15 years. He is also under investigation over the murder of four other boys in East Jakarta.

Police said Robot had confessed to killing 12 boys. But Robot's lawyers have argued a confession without material evidence or witnesses was not enough to convict Robot.

The lawyers -- Febry Irmansyah and Nadjab Khan -- have argued that the results of investigations into the other alleged murders should be available before Robot was tried.

Prosecutor Suriansyah said he had enough evidence to convict the suspect without evidence from the other investigations.

The defense lawyers had also questioned the accuracy of the dossier which did not give the dates of the alleged murders but only the dates of when the victims' bodies were found. The bodies were found between September 1995 and August 1996.

The defendant, who was a scavenger in Central and East Jakarta, was arrested in Tegal, Central Java, on Aug. 5 last year after a massive police manhunt. (13)