Prosecutors demand 2 years for 'Tempo' journalists

Evi Mariani, Jakarta

Prosecutors demanded on Monday that the court hand down two-year prison sentences to Tempo journalist Ahmad Taufik and editor Tengku Iskandar Ali for inciting public unrest and defaming businessman Tomy Winata.

"I thought the prosecution would propose more lenient sentences for us than for our chief editor, because, after all, it is he who has the last word," Taufik joking after the hearing while being hugged by Tempo chief editor Bambang Harymurti.

The prosecutors demanded the same sentence for Bambang on the same charges in a separate hearing at the Central Jakarta District Court last week.

The prosecutors also demanded the court take Taufik and Iskandar Ali into custody immediately after sentencing.

Prosecutor Bastian Hutabarat old the court, presided over by Judge Suripto, that both journalists wrote the article in question and that it contained false information. The article was published in the magazine's March 3, 2003 edition.

The prosecutors accused both defendants of publishing false information that provoked people into attacking Tomy's Artha Graha building on Jl. Pangeran Jayakarta, Central Jakarta.

They stated that the article had suggested Tomy was behind the fire that destroyed parts of Tanah Abang market in February by writing that the businessman had made a proposal to renovate the market three months earlier.

The prosecutors insisted that the information was false because Taufik could not produce evidence to prove otherwise.

The prosecution introduced information that could be damaging for Taufik, that is, that he was sentenced to 31 months in prison in 1995 for sowing hatred against the government by publishing an underground paper called Independen.

Iskandar has been charged because it was he who added "big scavenger" before Tomy's name. "Tomy Winata is not a big scavenger, he is a businessman," said Hutabarat.

After the hearing, Tempo lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis regretted that the prosecutors had not considered the Press Law when presenting their conclusion.

"But had the prosecutors taken the Press Law into consideration, Taufik and Iskandar would have not been tried in the first place," he said.