Sri Bintang Pamungkas rubbishes prosecutor's evidence
Sri Bintang Pamungkas rubbishes prosecutor's evidence
JAKARTA (JP): Outspoken politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas has
asked the Central Jakarta district court to free him of all
charges because the public prosecutors had failed to prove him
guilty of slandering President Soeharto.
Sri Bintang, a former member of the House of Representatives,
told the panel of judges on Wednesday that the chief of the team
of prosecutors, P. Sitinjak, had not used the original recording
of his speech.
The prosecutors claimed that the tape held a recording of a
discussion at the Berlin Technische Universitaet during the
course of which Bintang allegedly called Soeharto a dictator.
Two weeks ago Sitinjak asked the court to sentence Sri Bintang
to four years in jail for defaming President Soeharto.
Bintang said yesterday that the voice on the tape played by
Sitinjak in the court room to support his plea for Bintang's
indictment, failed to help the prosecutor's case because it was
not his voice on the tape.
"Even if the prosecutors were to use computer technology to
prove this is my voice, the nature of this technology, which is
wide open to manipulation, would make their "proof" meaningless,"
said the defendant in his defense statement, which lasted over
seven hours.
Bintang had earlier asked the court to bring in Police Capt.
Mubyarto, who made the first charge against him based on the
tape, to testify.
According to the defendant the officer first discovered the
tape and made the transcription.
The defendant also said that the four students, who were flown
in by the government from Berlin to testify, were not qualified
to support the prosecution because they are relatives of the
military attache at the Indonesian Consulate General in Berlin.
"The transcription itself cannot be used in court sessions
because it needs to be edited by experts," Bintang said.
He said that the prosecutors have also failed to prove that
the tape or its transcription were really from the discussion.
"Using the tape and its transcription as material evidence
only demonstrates the prosecutions hard-headedness and highlights
the fact the phrases have been taken out of context," Bintang
said.
He added that this practice is not very different to that of
fascist countries who resort to such authoritarian ways to push
political opponents into a corner. Bintang acknowledged that
intelligence officers have been tailing him and recording
everything he says since 1993.
Mohammad Assegaf, who leads the team of defense lawyers, asked
the panel of judges to adjourn the hearing to another day to read
their defense statement, but Sitinjak voiced an objection.
Presiding judge Syoffinan Sumantri overruled the objection and
declared the hearing adjourned until April 3. (16)