Trafficker gets three years jail
TANGERANG, West Java (JP): The Tangerang District Court sentenced a man to three years in jail yesterday for smuggling more than 60,000 Ecstasy pills from the Netherlands into Indonesia.
Presiding Judge Yustinar found Ridwan Chaniago, 45, guilty of trying to smuggle and peddle the pills, which were not registered with the Ministry of Health. The defendant was also fined Rp 3 million for the offense.
The sentence and fine were exactly what the prosecutor demanded.
The defendant was convicted of violating the 1992 Law on Health, specifically Articles 80 (4b) and 40 (1), which prohibit the production and distribution of drugs that are not registered with the Ministry of Health.
Such an offense carries a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment and a Rp 300 million fine.
The court found that Chaniago cooperated with three accomplices -- JAI, RS and OS (a woman)-- in the smuggling last April. The other three were tried separately in the same court.
The indictment said RS and OS assigned Chaniago go to the Netherlands to buy Ecstasy pills and bring them into Indonesia. RC was promised a profit of Rp 1,500 per pill for his services.
The pills were packed in four boxes and stuffed into a suitcase, traveled to Indonesia on Garuda flight GA 089055, the indictment said.
JAI, an employee of Garuda Indonesia, was supposed to wait for the pills when they arrived at the airport. But JAI did not pick up the pills because he was not on duty that day, and asked RS and OS to get the suitcase instead. When RS and OS tried to claim the suitcase, it was already at the Lost and Found counter.
Police arrested the four at Ibis Hotel Arcadia in Central Jakarta nine months ago.
On Tuesday, the Central Jakarta District Court handed down a twenty-month prison term and a Rp 2 million (US$850) fine to a Dutchman for the trafficking and possession of nearly 5,000 Ecstasy pills.
Presiding Judge Nurhayati said she found Koehoorn Laurens Henrikus, 51, guilty of holding one pill in his hand as he was about to sell Ecstasy to a would-be buyer in a hotel on Jl. MH Thamrin.
"He was also carrying 499 in the pocket of his trousers," the judge said.
Henrikus kept 500 pills in his Kijang car and almost 4,000 pills in his office in Taman Anggrek, West Jakarta.
The defendant had also been charged with producing the pills, but was acquitted on this count.
Henrikus, a consultant in a local cement company, had claimed in his defense that he did not know Ecstasy was banned in Indonesia.
The judge was not entertained by this argument. "It is unacceptable that a University graduate claimed his ignorance of Ecstasy's illegality," she said.
But the judge took into account that the defendant was cooperative during the police and prosecutors investigations and during the court cross-examination.
"The defendant's punishment should be lightened," she said.
Even still, the defendant complained that the verdict was not fair. Ecstasy defendants carrying more pills had been sentenced to less than one year, he said.
According to the law, Ecstasy is not a narcotic. The 1976 Anti-Narcotic Law, which carries a maximum penalty of death, does not include them.
The House of Representatives is deliberating a government- sponsored bill on psychotropic drugs which will give police more power to deal with the Ecstasy menace. (27/07)