'Trust' financial magazine loses libel suit, fined Rp 1 billion
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Trust financial and law magazine was fined Rp 1 billion (US$112,360) after it lost libel lawsuit filed by a businessman at the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday.
Presiding judge Cicut Sutiarso told the court the magazine had failed to maintain journalistic standards of conduct in an article entitled A gang of thieves hits state Bank Negara Indonesia published in the Oct. 1-7, 2003 edition.
The plaintiff, John Hamenda, and his company, PT Petindo Perkasa, accused the article of discrediting him and his company and said it had violated the presumption of innocence principle. Hamenda had demanded Rp 2 trillion in compensation for material and immaterial losses.
The panel of judges considered the article was not based on accurate facts and sources, as it only referred to a copy of a document that allegedly implicated Hamenda and Petindo in bogus credit schemes. The schemes involved Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) and caused Rp 1.7 trillion in state losses.
"Moreover, Trust magazine failed to use initials to describe those who were mentioned in the article," the judges said.
The judges emphasized the article had led to the plaintiff losing a project to construct the Madison Square shopping mall in Jakarta.
The judges decided to exonerate BNI, another party accused in the lawsuit, as they had found no proof the bank had violated banking secrecy principles by informing the media about credit schemes made by the company.
Trust lawyer Atmajaya Salim said his client would file an appeal against the verdict.
Earlier, the magazine had filed a counter lawsuit at the same court, asking for Rp 9 billion in compensation from Hamenda for trying to obstruct journalism by threatening "to demolish Trust office", Atmajaya said.
The banking scandal made headlines last October, when the police named 16 suspects in the case and sent two BNI officials to court over corruption charges.
During the investigation, the police arrested Hamenda but later released him due to insufficient evidence.
The main suspect, Maria Pauliene Lumowa, is living in Singapore, which does not have an extradition treaty with Indonesia.
BNI Kebayoran Baru branch head Koesadiyono and Foreign Customers Division head Edy Santoso stand accused of violating Law No. 31/1999 and Law No. 3/1977 on corruption. The pair are alleged to have disbursed export credits to companies without proper assessments or checks.
The defendants could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Both were also charged under Law No. 10/1998 on banking and Law No. 15/2002 on money laundering.
According to the prosecutors, the defendants approved export credits to eight subsidiaries of the Gramarindo Group and the Petindo Group with bogus letters of credit issued by banks in Kenya, Switzerland and the Cook Islands as collateral.