Suprapto, fearless death penalty judge

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

He is a bit smaller than the average Indonesian man.

He always looks relaxed and seems not to have any worries at all when he enters the courtroom at Tangerang District Court.

However, do not underestimate him. He never looks drowsy during sessions, as most other judges do. Fifty-two-year-old Judge Prapto, who has been at the court since 2001, is judge death. Prapto, is one of a three-member panel of judges that hands down death sentences for drug traffickers tried at the court.

In December 2001, Prapto, along with presiding judge Maha Nikmah and Prim Haryadi, imposed the death sentence on Edith Yunita Sianturi, an Indonesian woman who smuggled one kilogram of heroin from Bangkok into the country.

Since then, Prapto has handed down the death penalty to nine defendants. He will also likely hand down the death sentence to Brazilian Rorigo Gularte for smuggling six kilograms of cocaine from Sao Paolo, and to Indian national Gurdip Singh who attempted to smuggle 300 grams of heroin into the country via Soekarno- Hatta International Airport.

As for the court, it has sentenced to death a total of 27 defendants and one a life sentence, in similar cases. They comprise five Nepalese, four Indonesian women and an Indonesian man, eight Nigerian men, two Thai women, a Pakistani, an Angolan and a Zimbabwean man, a Dutch citizen, a Brazilian man and two Malawians.

None of the defendants, however have been executed. While those on death row are all couriers, the people behind them remain at large.

National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bactiar once said that Indonesia was now considered to be a psychotropic substance producer and a prominent narcotics distribution center for Asia. He estimated that 1.2 percent of the country's 210 million people were drug users.

Da'i assertions were right, the police managed to find two ecstasy factories that produced millions of the pills per day on Jl. KH. Hasyim Ashari Cipondoh and Jl. Imam Bonjol, 79A, Karawaci, both in Tangerang municipality in April 2002.

The factory owner Ang Kiem Sioe, a Dutch citizen, received the death sentence from the Tangerang District Court in Jan. 2003.

In observance of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) selected Tangerang District Court in 2002 as the judicial institution to receive its first annual award in recognition of its attempts in upholding the law.

The president praised the Tangerang District Court and called for harsh sentences for drug dealers. Megawati also rejected requests for a pardon filed by four convicted drug traffickers on death row in 2003.

Responding to comments on the decision to hand down the death penalty, which some feel is a violation of human rights, Prapto said that he had no qualms at all and would ignore any threats as a result of his decision.

"I'm not worried about the rights of drug traffickers because they don't care about the rights of millions of drug abuse victims. I'm very concerned about the nation's young generation," he told The Jakarta Post in an interview.

He said that one gram of heroin that cost Rp 500,000 on the street could kill 100 people. If the defendants smuggled in one kilogram of heroin, then how many people could they kill?

"I have tried many school students for drug abuse. What will be the nation's future if the young generation is poisoned by drugs? We the judges at the Tangerang court will never compromise over drug dealers," he stressed.

Aware that the country is dragging its feet in the implementation of the law, Prapto turned down Rp 500 million in bribes offered by the accomplices of drug defendants, who hoped that he would reduce the penalty from death to life imprisonment.

This happened to Nigerian Stephen Rasheed Akinyemi, whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after he appealed to the West Java High Court.

"Drug accomplices never give up looking for loopholes in the law. If they fail to bribe us, they still have an opportunity to bribe judges on appeal in the High Court.

He said that whatever form of collusion law enforcers at the High Court might be involved in, the most important thing for him was that his decision to hand down the death penalty to drug smugglers received strong support from society.

Prapto was born on March 17, 1957, in Ponorogo, East Java. He completed elementary school and high school in his hometown. He continued his education at the school of law of the Indonesian Islamic University (UII) in Yogyakarta, where he was a classmate of former defense minister Mahfud MD.

After finishing his studies in Yogyakarta in 1987, Prapto looked for a job in Jakarta. After two years without work he was accepted at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and Civil Service Administration Board (BAKN) all at the same time in 1999.

However, a career as a judge appealed to him more. At that time he joined the training center for judges (Cakim).

Prapto, the husband of Masrofah, whom he married in 1987, and father of two sons and a daughter, began serving as a judge in Sungai Liat District Court, Bangka, South Sumatra in 1990.

He was assigned to Mentro District Court, Central Lampung regency in 1996 and transferred to Tangerang District Court in 2001.

To date, Prapto says he has never received threats or been intimidated after handing down the death sentence. But before the trial he admitted that he was often the target of bribery attempts.

"They offered me a huge sum of money -- enough to cover all my expenses for 10 years," he said.

But Prapto was not interested, even though his take-home pay is a mere Rp 3.5 million per month.