Trafficker gets three years jail
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)