Students offer weak defense for Bintang

Students offer weak defense for Bintang

JAKARTA (JP): Two Indonesian students flown from Germany to
testify for Sri Bintang Pamungkas failed to clear the
controversial politician from the accusations of slandering
President Soeharto in their court testimony yesterday.

The two students confirmed that Bintang did utter the word
"dictator" in referring to the head of state during a discussion
with Indonesian students in Berlin last April, but they said this
was in response to a question from the floor.

However, while they were able to give the context in which the
offending word was uttered, neither of them could remember the
precise wordings that Bintang had used in addressing the
question.

The two students -- Ignatius Irianto and Christianto Indratmo
Suherman -- were flown in from Germany upon the insistence of
Bintang's defense lawyers. The government prosecutors, who had
flown in five students from Germany to testify for them, have
agreed to pay the flights and accommodations of the two students.

Irianto acted as the moderator in the discussion held in April
at the Technische Universitaet in Berlin in which Bintang was
guest speaker. Christianto was writing the meeting's minutes.

Bintang is being accused of slandering the President. If found
guilty, he could be sentenced to a maximum of six years in jail.

Irianto and Christianto testified that the offending quotes
attributed by the prosecutors to Bintang were incorrect.

"This is not what Bintang said," Irianto said when he was
confronted with the words which the prosecutors said Bintang
used.

"Bintang did not say Sukarno and Soeharto were dictators. He
said they had deviated," Irianto said. "It was not their fault
that the deviation occurred. It is the 1945 Constitution that is
imperfect and should be reformed," he added.

Sukarno was the first Indonesian president whom Soeharto
formally succeeded in 1968.

According to the prosecutors' dossiers, Bintang called both
Sukarno and Soeharto "dictators" and accused both leaders of
violating the 1945 Constitution.

Christianto said that the words "dictator" and "deviation"
appeared during the question-and-answer session but pointed out
that Bintang was responding to questions raised by two students
-- Sunarto and Sri Basuki.

"It was Sunarto, who originally called Sukarno and Soeharto
dictators," he said.

Bintang was still a member of the House of Representatives in
April. He lost his seat in May after President Soeharto approved
a request by the United Development Party to have him removed.

The prosecution yesterday also presented Lukman Hakim, a
researcher at the Center for the Supervision and Development of
Bahasa Indonesia, to help the judges in understanding certain
meanings of the terms mentioned in the dossiers.

The trial was adjourned until next Wednesday to hear testimony
for Bintang's defense. Two more Indonesian students in Germany
will testify. They are Iwan Setiabudi and Syaiful.

Lawyers representing Bintang yesterday also asked the judges
permission to present four experts to testify for the defendant.
They are linguists J.S. Badudu and Ayat Rohaidi, political
observer Harun Al Rasyid, and philosopher Frans Magnis Suseno.
(imn)