Two court officials injured in Aspac melee

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

An attempt to forcibly seize control of the Century Tower building, previously known as the Bank Aspac building, on Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta, turned violent on Wednesday, with two court bailiffs ending up injured.

The seizure attempt was postponed to Thursday.

South Jakarta District Court officers arrived at the building at about 1 p.m., along with the lawyer of building owner PT Bumi Jawa Sentosa and dozens of heavies.

Their arrival was immediately booed by around 300 men gathered inside the gates of the building.

Some of them started to throw stones at the court officials and the heavies, triggering a melee.

Bailiffs Tonton and Teddy were hit on the head by stones, and were taken to a nearby hospital.

The brawl created a traffic jam along the street for more than an hour, with many of the stones also hitting passing cars and motorcyclists.

The court officials and their heavies quickly retreated to a vacant plot a few meters away from the building.

PT Bumi lawyer David Tobing said the seizure had to be delayed in light of the tense situation.

"The district court had sent a letter to the Jakarta Police, requesting their presence to provide backup during the seizure process. The police said they would deploy 270 officers today," he said. "But they arrived only after the two court officers were injured."

At about 3:30 p.m., only few of the bailiffs were still at the scene, which was tightly guarded by men wearing T-shirts and jeans, and brandishing sticks.

One of them said they had been standing guard from the previous night to foil the seizure, and that more would be coming to help on Wednesday evening.

The building is currently managed by PT Mitra Bangun Griya, according to Mitra's lawyer Edo Mbete.

Mbete argued that the most recent decision handed down by the South Jakarta District Court had voided an earlier deal for the purchase of the building by PT Bumi from the now-defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).

The building was originally owned by PT Bank Asia Pacific. But it was seized by IBRA after a former director of the bank, Setiawan Harjono, was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to return the Rp 408 billion the bank had mischanneled. Harjono was also ordered to pay a Rp 30 million fine.

Kamari, a bailiff with the district court, said the court would reschedule the seizure to another day.