Suprapto, fearless death penalty judge

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.