"Walls remind me of the prison..."

Sari P. Setiogi The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Being acquitted from all charges Thursday by the Central Jakarta District court was a big relief for Tempo news magazine journalist, Ahmad Taufik.

His family already brought him a black plastic bucket, filled with a flip-flop, Thursday's edition of Tempo newspaper, a sarong and toothbrush.

"Just in case I have to go to the jail..." Taufik told The Jakarta Post after the verdict reading. Later, he told the Post that he already had contacted his old friends at the Cipinang prison, East Jakarta, as well.

"Personally, I am happy that I do not have to be in prison again," said Taufik. Taufik was jailed back in 1995 over articles he made for an internal bulletin of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI).

Being jailed for two years and seven months left him with an on-and-off pain on his left leg. "It was very cold at the prison as there was no bed. Now, I still feel my leg aching sometimes, especially when I climb the stairs," said Taufik.

Taufik was detained in several different prisons: Salemba, Central Jakarta; Cipinang, East Jakarta; Cirebon, West Java and Kuningan, West Java.

"My worst was when I was under the police detention. It was my very first experience dealing with such thing... My eldest son was only three days at that time," he said, wandering a while.

Taufik has two sons from his marriage with a Surabaya-born woman, Syafa Elliyin. Ali Anzi Muntazhar is now nine years old and Muhammad Khatami Aji is six years old.

The family are now planning to place their new home in Sawangan, Bogor, before the coming month of fasting. "It is a bamboo house. I prefer bamboo. I don't like walls. They remind me of the prison..." said Taufik.

His humorous side belies such trauma. In earlier hearings he presented a number of CDs of a favorite cartoon character, the journalist Tintin, to the panel of judges.

However, despite Taufik was acquitted this time, he said he was not fully satisfied with the judges ruling that Thursday.

"The judges ruling still declared me guilty for writing a lie," the 39-year old man told the Post on an interview at his office in Proklamasi, Central Jakarta.

Therefore, his chief editor, Bambang Harymurti, was sentenced for one year in prison in a bid to account for the article "Is Tomy in 'Tenabang'?" published in Tempo March 3-9, 2003.

The article cited allegations that prominent businessman Tomy Winata stood for profit from a fire at the Tanah Abang textile market, Central Jakarta.

Tomy later sued the magazine for defaming his name, despite it included denials of the allegations from the businessman.

"I saw a proposal which cited Tomy's name from a source. It was a proposal to renovate the Tanah Abang market and it was proposed three months before the fire razed the market," he said. According to Taufik, a company owned by Tomy, Artha Graha, was printed in the document as the financial sponsor.

However, Taufik was not allowed to copy the document for confidential matter. "We already tried to confirm even to Tomy himself. He denied. And we wrote that down," he said.

That was where the story began.

Taufik said he regretted the judges decision to sentence his chief editor. "It was a set back to our press freedom. The arguments of the judges were not logic. On my case, they used the press law, but they did not use it on Bambang."

Taufik, a graduate from the Faculty of Law of the Bandung Islamic University, Bandung, understood very well the legal confusion at the trial.

"When I first entered the Faculty of Law, my mother told me not to be a judge, prosecutor or lawyer. She said, those professions had their one leg in the hell. They were playing with one's fate," said Taufik.