U.S. embassy guard gets 7 years in drug case
U.S. embassy guard gets 7 years in drug case
JAKARTA (JP): An American Air Force officer tried
over a Jakarta drug case was sentenced to seven years in prison
by a military tribunal in the U.S. territory of Guam.
The verdict is four years more than the sentence meted out by
a Jakarta district court to his Dutch accomplices.
Steven J. Bryner, formerly a security guard at the U.S.
embassy in Jakarta, was sentenced on Aug. 2 at Andersen Air Force
Base, Guam, on charges of aiding and abetting Dutchman Christian
van den Bosch and Leonard Jacobus, alias Levi, another Dutch
national, in the trafficking of Eva pills which contain derivat
amphetamine, a substance considered a dangerous drug.
Christian and Levi each received three years from the Central
Jakarta District Court last month.
Present at Bryner's trial were Brig. Gen. Rusdihardjo, Chief
of the Criminal Investigation Division for Indonesian National
Police, and Bruce W. Tilly, a security attache at the U.S.
embassy here.
Rusdihardjo and Tilly told reporters on Tuesday that Bryner
pled guilty to conspiracy to traffic and distribute Eva pills.
The prosecution also charged him with tarnishing the image of
the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. embassy in Indonesia by his deed
for which the officer has apologized to the Indonesian
government.
The military court ordered that the Air Force demote Bryner
and dishonorably discharge him from active service.
Outdated law
"The two (Christian and Levi) received lighter punishment due
to shortcomings in our outdated law which was produced during the
Dutch colonial period. We are now drafting a new, stricter law on
the matter," Rusdihardjo said in a press conference here Tuesday.
Also present at the meeting were Indonesian national police
spokesman Brig. Gen. IK Ratta and assistant to the press attache
at the U.S. embassy, Steve Schermerhorn.
Bryner, a fellow Air Force officer and security guard at the
U.S. embassy in Jakarta, Peter Karajin, and the two Dutchmen were
captured by Central Jakarta police while attempting to sell 167
"Eva" pills to an Indonesian by the name of Irsan at the
Borobudur Inter-Continental Hotel on Feb. 6.
Irsan managed to elude the dragnet and remains at large.
Upon their arrest at the hotel, police then began a search of
the house at Jl. Cikatomas I in which the four foreigners had
been living and found 7,500 Eva pills hidden in a cabinet.
Christian and Levi were detained and tried here, but Bryner
and Karajin were quickly deported to the U.S. because of their
diplomatic immunity.
Tilly said that Karajin will be tried in the near future.(jsk)