Rights commission wants Marsinah case reopened

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights urged the police yesterday to reopen the file on the murder of labor activist Marsinah following the high court decision to acquit a man earlier thought to have masterminded the killing.

The commission's Secretary-General, Baharuddin Lopa, said the police should reopen the Marsinah case file in order to find the murderer.

The Surabaya High Court last month overturned the guilty verdict meted out by a district court to Judi Susanto, the owner of the watchmaking company where Marsinah was working at the time of her brutal demise.

Her torture and murder in May last year sparked an outcry from labor and human rights activists. The entire legal process, from arrest and interrogation to the subsequent trial of Judi and eight of his staff, all of whom were charged with responsibility for her killing, was wrought with controversy.

All nine were convicted for conspiracy, with Judi receiving the stiffest penalty of 17 years in jail for masterminding the murder. Ironically, as Judi went free due to the acquittal, the same court upheld the guilty verdict against another defendant, Yudi Astono, and reaffirmed his four-year jail term.

Speaking during a law seminar, Lopa yesterday said that he was sure that Judi, as well as the other defendants, were victims of a frame-up designed to make them take the rap for the murder committed by others.

Loebby Loqman, a professor of criminal law from the University of Indonesia, suggested that police search for her actual killers instead of wasting time looking for more evidence to support the allegations against Judi.

"He has been released, which means that there must be somebody else who committed the murder," Loebby said.

The two men made the remarks in a seminar organized by the Forum Keadilan biweekly and the Indonesian Judges' Association (Ikahi).

The National Commission of Human Rights, responding to requests from the defendants' lawyers, sent a team to investigate allegations of torture and human rights abuses by the police and the military in extracting incriminating statements from them.

The commission came up with a report saying that there were indications that the alleged actions did take place and urged the concerned authorities to respond to the report. The team, which was led by Lopa, suggested the possibility that the murder was committed by people other than the defendants.

He said he was not happy with the police response that the commission should conduct the investigation itself.

"The human rights commission members are not investigators. If the commission carries out an investigation, what is the use of police and prosecutors?" Lopa, a former prosecutor, asked.

Lopa went public yesterday with some of the commission's findings, which had not been disclosed previously.

During its inquiry, the commission determined that Judi had been tortured and that from the beginning of the investigation, the police had "hidden" Judi's two housemaids, who acted as the key witnesses in the case, Lopa said. It was the maids who testified that Judi had led a meeting in the house to plan the murder of Marsinah.

"What was the use of hiding them?" Lopa said.

Another irregularity found by the commission was the fact that Marsinah's clothes had been burned. "Why did they burn them?" he asked, without speculating openly about who had burned the clothes.

The commission also discovered problems with the visum et repertum autopsy document.

Lopa said that altogether the commission found seven pieces of evidence to back its conclusion that Marsinah was killed by a person or persons other than the defendants.

Marsinah, a high school graduate, was actively involved in a series of protests, demanding improvement in working conditions at the company, including a raise in the workers' daily wages from Rp 1,700 to Rp 2,250.

The deceased activist was granted a posthumous Yap Thiam Hien human rights award from the Foundation for the Human Rights Study Center last year for her struggle for labor rights.

This year's award will be presented to Judi's lawyer, Trimoelya D. Soerjadi, on Saturday. (sim)