Tommy's defense team pledges to resist summons
JAKARTA (JP): The defense team of businessman Hutomo Mandala Putra, alias Tommy, said on Wednesday that their client would not appear at the South Jakarta Prosecutor's Office to fulfill the summons for an execution of a Supreme Court ruling on Thursday.
They called such a measure "premature" and in violation of the law.
L.M.M. Samosir, one of Tommy's lawyers, said that by carrying out the execution of the ruling on their client, the prosecutors disobeyed South Jakarta District Court's ruling which had ordered the postponement of the execution on Tommy, the youngest son of former president Soeharto, who was sentenced to 18-months imprisonment by the Supreme Court on Sept. 22 for corruption.
"Our client rejects execution of the ruling only until there is a definite response or a presidential decree over Tommy's appeal for presidential pardon," Samosir told journalists, while citing that the team has sent a letter to the Head of the South Jakarta Prosecutor's Office Antasari Azhar, expressing their complaint.
His colleague, Nudirman Munir, said Tommy would accept the decision of President Abdurrahman Wahid whether he rejected or endorsed the appeal for pardon of their client, convicted in an unlawful land swap deal between his firm, PT Goro Batara Sakti, and the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) in 1995.
"Tommy will obey whatever is the President's decision on his appeal for pardon. So, what's the use of executing the Supreme Court verdict just because we have filed a proposal for a review into his case.
"They (the prosecutors) are just showing off and have abandoned legal principles," Nudirman said.
Separately in the day, President Abdurrahman hinted that he would respond to Tommy's pardon appeal later this week.
Abdurrahman has repeatedly said that he would reject the appeal.
The Supreme Court overturned on Sept. 22 a lower court ruling in 1999 which exonerated Tommy of corruption charges in the Rp 95.4 billion land exchange deal between Bulog and PT Goro.
The Supreme Court instead sentenced Tommy to 18 months in jail and ordered him to return Rp 30.7 billion in state losses.
The verdict was issued only days after Abdurrahman gave the order to the police to apprehend Tommy, whom he believed to be involved in the recent bombing incidents in Jakarta.
Spokesman to the Supreme Court, Pranowo, shared the opinion of Tommy's defense team that the prosecutors should obey the South Jakarta District Court judges' ruling on the postponement of the execution.
"As long as the appeal for pardon is in process, the prosecutor cannot execute Tommy's sentence," he told journalists at his office on Wednesday.
However, Attorney General Marzuki Darusman said that the decision to execute the Supreme Court's verdict would not violate any law or judges' ruling.
"If there was a ruling from the district court, prohibiting the prosecutors from executing the ruling, we will obey it.
"But, as there is none, we'll execute the Supreme Court's verdict tomorrow (Thursday) because it's our duty to do so as stipulated in the Criminal Code Procedures (KUHAP)," he told journalists.
Marzuki was referring to Paragraph 1 of Article 268 of KUHAP which stipulates that an appeal from a convict for a review into his/her case cannot postpone the execution of the verdict.
Meanwhile, Antasari Azhar said he had prepared contingency measures in anticipation of Tommy's failure to meet the deadline on Thursday.
"But, I cannot tell you. Let's just wait and see what we will do tomorrow."
The prosecutor's office also requested the district court to annul its ruling on the postponement of the execution, which was granted to Tommy as the latter filed for the appeal for pardon on Oct. 3, Antasari said.
But head of South Jakarta District Court Lalu Mariyun said he could not grant the prosecutor's request as the ruling on the postponement of the execution was part and parcel of Tommy's appeal for pardon. (01/bby)