'Tempo' acquitted of felonious act

'Tempo' acquitted of felonious act

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Central Jakarta District Court threw out on Wednesday a civil
lawsuit filed by youth organization Pemuda Panca Marga (PPM)
against Tempo magazine, ruling that the suit was "not grounded in
law".

PPM, whose members are the sons and daughters of army
veterans, claimed that Tempo's chief editor Bambang Harymurti,
its journalist Ahmad Taufik, and publisher Tempo Inti Media, had
damaged its reputation by printing two articles in June 2003 that
referred to them as a "gang", "mercenaries" and "children of
former soldiers".

The articles, one written by Taufik and the other an unsigned
opinion piece, described the ransacking of the Commission for
Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) office in May.

The articles reported that 100 people dressed in PPM's
military-style fatigues carried out the attack.

Suripto, a member of the panel of judges, said that the heart
of the case addressed the question: "Did the articles result in
any damage to (the reputation of) the plaintiff?"

"The articles did not reach the level of insult or damage to
(the plaintiff's) reputation," he said reading the points of
consideration behind the court's decision.

Presiding judge Cicut Sutiarso said, while reading out the
verdict: "Therefore the defendants have not been proven to have
committed a felonious act that resulted in damage to the
plaintiff's reputation."

With the decision that ended the six-month long civil trial,
the judges dismissed PPM's demands that included a two-year
suspension of Tempo's operations, public apologies to be run for
three consecutive days in at least 30 media, and punitive damages
of Rp 10.5 billion (US$ 1 million).

Instead, the judges ordered PPM to pay the Rp 419,000 court
fees.

"We will definitely appeal the verdict," said Danu Asmara,
PPM's lawyer, who added that the group members consisted of "many
government employees and members of the House of
Representatives".

A lawyer from Legal Aid for the Press, which was representing
Tempo, Misbahuddin Gasma, said that the verdict proved their
assertion that "the articles were standard pieces of journalism."

The same court threw out the libel suit filed by PPM against
the magazine over the publication of the same articles, as a
separate panel of judges determined that the charges were
obscure. (002)