Soerjadi denies deal with attackers

Soerjadi denies deal with attackers

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Democratic Party's (PDI)
chairman, Soerjadi, denied yesterday that he had hired people to
seize the party's headquarters from supporters of the ousted PDI
leader Megawati Soekarnoputri.

"I've met a lot of people in my life. I couldn't be sure
whether I had met them in the past," he said. "The plaintiffs'
claim is a lie."

Soerjadi was commenting on a Rp 1.2 billion (US$426,000)
lawsuit filed by 51 people who claimed they had been hired by
Soerjadi to raid the PDI headquarters on July 27 last year. The
takeover led to a riot that killed five people, injured more than
100 and left 23 missing.

In the suit filed Monday at the Central Jakarta District
Court, the plaintiffs said Soerjadi and his cadres had broken a
promise to pay them Rp 200 million in cash after the takeover.

The 51 plaintiffs, who said they were among the 430 people
Soerjadi had recruited for the raid, also charged that they had
been deceived. They claimed that Soerjadi's cadres had told them
that their mission was to reinforce Megawati's loyalists
defending the office, not take it over.

Soerjadi dismissed the allegation, saying it was a political
maneuver rather than a legal action. "I will let my own lawyers
evaluate the lawsuit. And I will sue them back if we have enough
evidence to prove that their claim is slander," he said.

He said he was ready to testify or be questioned over the
lawsuit.

"In the past, I only had to employ junior lawyers to... defeat
all of Megawati's lawsuits," he said.

Soerjadi said there had been no deals to take over the
headquarters. "I have once spoken with their (the plaintiff's)
leader, Bella, but did not discuss the party headquarters'
takeover," he said.

"I have never trusted him, because all the proposals he made
to me only concerned money," he said.

Soerjadi said Bella had offered to mobilize about 40,000
people to demonstrate support for him, and that Bella had offered
him security for his daughter's wedding ceremony at his home in
South Jakarta a month after the takeover.

"I rejected his two offers," he said.

Bella, or Seno Bella Emyus, said in the lawsuit that he had
received an Rp 11.5 million advance payment and had been promised
the balance after the takeover. "Soerjadi broke his promise,"
Bella said.

Soerjadi unseated Megawati's leadership of the PDI at a
congress in Medan in last June. Megawati and her supporters have
declared the congress unconstitutional. (imn)