Tommy's friend facing five years behind bars

JAKARTA: A close friend of former fugitive and prisoner Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra is facing a possible sentence of five years in jail for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

Prosecutor Resni Muchtar presented the sentence facing the defendant, Hetty Siti Hartika, age 39, at the Central Jakarta District Court on Tuesday.

Hetty was charged under the emergency law, which carries a maximum penalty of death.

Resni told The Jakarta Post later that the sentence sought was appropriate because of its aim of a "fulfilled sense of justice."

Hetty is a manager of Cemara Apartments in Menteng area, Central Jakarta, which is owned by the Soeharto family. She was arrested by the police on Aug. 4, 2001, at the apartments during a search for Tommy, then a fugitive.

At that time, the police found several models of guns and types of bullets. The police believed that the weapons and ammunition, which belonged to Tommy, played a part in the murder of Supreme Court Justice M. Syafiuddin Kartasasmita on July 26 of last year.

In October of 2000, Tommy ordered the defendant to come to his house on Jl. Cendana No 4, Menteng, Central Jakarta, to bring his car, a green Audi with license number 510 RI, to the Cemara apartments.

About a week later, he asked Hetty to check on whether there were some weapons inside the car which she found after examining it. Six months later, Tommy ordered the defendant to place the weapons in the basement.

In June, he contacted her again, asking her to put the weapons inside the apartments.

"The defendant had confessed in preliminary investigations that she had brought the weapons to the apartments," Resni told the court, presided over by Judge Musa Simatupang.

Sainah, the maid of the apartment, and a witness had confessed during earlier hearings that she had delivered bags with weapons from the car.

Hetty gave no response while the prosecutor read out the sentence demand, a response similar to that by other Tommy's other associates who had been brought before the court.

The court will resume in two weeks to hear the defendant's plea. --JP