'Solid walls remind me of prison ...'
Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Being acquitted of all charges on Thursday by the Central Jakarta District Court came as a huge relief for Tempo news magazine journalist, Ahmad Taufik.
His family already brought him a black plastic bucket, filled with a pair of flip-flops, Thursday's edition of Tempo newspaper, a sarong and toothbrush.
"Just in case I have to go to jail ..." Taufik told The Jakarta Post after the verdict was read. Later, he told the Post that he had already contacted his old friends at Cipinang prison, East Jakarta.
"Personally, I am happy that I do not have to go to prison," said Taufik. Taufik was jailed back in 1995 over articles he made for an internal bulletin of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI).
Being jailed for two years and seven months left him with an recurrent pain in his left leg. "It was very cold at the prison as there was no bed. I can still feel my leg aching sometimes, especially when I climb stairs," said Taufik.
Taufik was detained in several different prisons: Salemba, Central Jakarta; Cipinang, East Jakarta; Cirebon, West Java and Kuningan, West Java.
"My worst was when I was under police detention. It was my very first experience of dealing with such a thing ... My eldest son was only three days old at that time," he said.
Taufik has two sons from his marriage with Surabaya-born Syafa Elliyin. Ali Anzi Muntazhar is now nine years old and Muhammad Khatami Aji is six years old.
The family are now planning to move to Sawangan, Bogor, before the coming fasting month. "It is a bamboo house. I prefer bamboo. I don't like walls. They remind me of prison ..." said Taufik.
His humorous side belies such trauma. In earlier hearings he presented a number of CDs of a favorite cartoon character, the journalist Tintin, to the panel of judges.
However, even though Taufik was acquitted this time, he said he was not completely satisfied with the judges ruling that Thursday.
"The ruling still declared me guilty for writing an untruth," the 39-year old journalist told the Post during an interview at his office in Proklamasi, Central Jakarta.
His chief editor, Bambang Harymurti, was sentenced to one year in prison for the article Is Tomy in 'Tenabang? published in Tempo in its March 3 to March 9, 2003, edition.
The article cited allegations that prominent businessman Tomy Winata stood to profit from a fire at the Tanah Abang textile market, Central Jakarta.
Tomy later reported the magazine to the police for defamation, despite denials of the allegations from the businessman.
"I saw a proposal which cited Tomy's name from a source. It was a proposal to renovate the Tanah Abang market and it was proposed three months before the fire razed the market," he said. According to Taufik, a company owned by Tomy, Artha Graha, was mentioned in the document as the financial sponsor.
However, Taufik was not allowed to copy the document due to its confidentiality. "We even tried to confirm the reports with Tomy himself. He denied it. And we wrote that down too," he said.
That was where the story began.
Taufik said he regretted the judges decision to sentence his chief editor. "It was a set back for freedom of the press. The arguments of the judges were not logical. In my case, they used the Press Law, but they did not use it for Bambang."
Taufik, a graduate from the Faculty of Law of the Bandung Islamic University, Bandung, understood very well the legal confusion at the trial.
"When I first entered the Faculty of Law, my mother told me not to be a judge, prosecutor or lawyer. She said those professions had one leg in hell. They are playing with one's fate," said Taufik.