Tommy's contempt of law sidelined

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Evading conviction is a crime that Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra committed when he escaped imprisonment a year ago, but police seem disinterested in pursuing this blatant contempt of the law by focusing instead on other charges which, while no less grave, have yet to be proven.

Legal experts are up in arms fearing that the police are sending the wrong message by not pursuing the obvious offense with more vigor, which could lead to Tommy's escape from authorities go unpunished.

This has become all the more glaring because the government has specifically instructed the police to pursue the contempt of the law charge as one of the primary offenses, along with three other cases the police are pursuing -- the murder of Supreme Court Justice M. Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, illegal possession of arms and masterminding bomb attacks in the capital.

"By ignoring Tommy's time on the run, police are giving the impression that such a crime was never committed," lawyer Luhut M. Pangaribuan from the Indonesian Bar Association (APHI) told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

"It's a contradiction. The police were supposedly engaged in a chase to catch him, long before they named Tommy a suspect for other offenses.

"But since Tommy's capture, police have instead been focussing on a number of vague accusations," Luhut charged.

Tommy initially fled arrest after being convicted of graft. However, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction last month in a controversial review.

During his year-long stint in hiding, police also alleged that Tommy was involved in three other cases.

Bambang Widjojanto, chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation (YLBHI), maintains that the fact the Supreme Court eventually overturned the conviction does not justify Tommy's actions in fleeing the authorities.

Bambang said that he did not understand the reasoning behind the strategy taken by the police in starting the investigation with the most difficult-to-prove cases rather than the easiest one.

"The police have to explain to the public that they have a strong reason to do that," he told the Post.

Article 216 of the Criminal Code says that evading justice is punishable with four months and two weeks imprisonment.

Though police claim to have solid evidence on the three cases they are focusing on, conviction remains far from assured once it goes to trial.

Police have not explained why they will not bring forward Tommy's evasion of justice as a separate case and why they will merely add it as a compounding factor against him in the other three cases.

They seem confident of being able to pin Articles 340 and 341 for premeditated murder and Emergency Law No. 12/1951 for weapons.

They carry a maximum penalty of death.

Prosecutor Antasari Azhar, head of South Jakarta District Court, seemed to be washing his hands of the matter saying it was up to the police who were currently running the show.

Prosecutors, however, have filed an appeal, albeit with seemingly little legal precedence, for the Supreme Court to review its decision to overturn Tommy's conviction in the graft case.

Many fear that the public's already battered sense of justice may deteriorate further if no conviction is eventually obtained when such a simple opportunity lies open for the taking.

Opinion polls already show that the public fear a recurrence of the legal folly that led to Tommy's escape a year ago.

Luhut said it was no wonder that the public had such little faith in the proceedings after they were presented with scenes of Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Sofjan Jacoeb hugging the country's most wanted man after his capture on Wednesday.

"If the police fail to probe Tommy's escape properly, then I wonder what's behind all this," he remarked.

"Because it's funny to see how Tommy's cases always develop into another issue, such as his meeting with Gus Dur, which I think is only secondary to the main case."