Soldier gets three month for beating activist

Soldier gets three month for beating activist

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

A Banda Aceh military court on Wednesday sentenced Capt. T. Syuib
Mahmud to three months jail for assaulting activist Farid Faqih,
who is currently in custody for allegedly stealing donated items
destined for tsunami victims in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

Presiding judge Maj. Hulwani found Syuib guilty as charged.
The sentence was a month less than that requested by the military
prosecutor.

The defendant, accompanied by his three lawyers Capt. Sutisna,
Capt. Irham and First Lt. Rizki Guntur Hidayatsyah, said he would
appeal the decision.

Syuib told journalists that the decision was unfair since he
was just trying to look after aid donations that were the
property of the state.

The incident happened when the relief materials from the
military officers' wives association, Dharma Pertiwi, arrived by
plane at the Iskandar Muda Air Base in the Blang Bintang area
just outside of Banda Aceh. Capt. Syuib, a military medical
officer, logged in and received the donations.

However, he claims that when he got back from reporting the
aid's arrival to the Indonesian military operational command on
the base, the containers were gone. Syuib said that he eventually
discovered that the supplies had been loaded onto two trucks and
then taken to a warehouse.

Syuib said that he was outraged, claiming that Farid, who is
in Aceh along with other NGO activists, working in partnership
with the UN's World Food Program, was responsible for taking the
aid away. After an argument, Farid was severely beaten.

"I don't accept three months (jail), not even a month. What I
did was protecting state property that was stolen by other
people," he said.

Hulwani, with two other judges Maj. Marwan Suhandi and Maj.
Suryadi Samsir, said in their decision that the defendant
intentionally assaulted Farid.

Farid is the coordinator of Government Watch (GOWA), a non-
governmental organization that acts as an anticorruption
watchdog, and was named a suspect in the matter of the missing
aid.