Weak indictments blamed for not guilty verdicts

Weak indictments blamed for not guilty verdicts

M. Taufiqurrahman and Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Weak indictments by prosecutors because of alleged pressure from
the Military were blamed on Thursday for acquittals of Army
generals from charges of gross human rights abuses in the 1999
East Timor violence and the 1984 Tanjung Priok massacre.

Analysts said these acquittals were a strong indication that
the Indonesian Military (TNI) remained powerful in the new
democracy despite its claims it had quit politics.

Hendardi, the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights
Association (PBHI) executive director, said the prosecutors at an
ad hoc human rights tribunal shared the blame with judges for the
generals' releases as the judges had to hand down verdicts based
on poor indictments.

He pointed out the weak indictments were linked to the
Military's strong influence in the country's judiciary system.

"The acquittals are merely the pinnacle of the Military's
interference in the judiciary. Somehow, they manage to play an
influential role in (creating) flawed indictments from the
Attorney General's Office," Hendardi told The Jakarta Post.

On Thursday, the Army's Kopassus elite force commander Maj.
Gen. Sriyanto Muntrasan was acquitted by an ad hoc human rights
court of all charges for his role in the 1984 massacre in Tanjung
Priok, North Jakarta.

On Tuesday, the same court proclaimed former Jakarta Military
Police commander Maj. Gen. (ret.) Pranowo, not guilty for failing
to stop his troops from torturing protesters detained after the
Tanjung Priok incident.

The court in both cases ruled that the evidence could not
prove the charges of gross human rights violations. Victims who
had testified to being tortured had withdrawn testimonies, and
the prosecution had quoted a number of them saying that the
physical effect of the torture was not too severe, as their
spines were not broken.

Last month, the Supreme Court acquitted Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri
and three other officers of gross human rights abuses linked to
atrocities that followed the separation of East Timor from
Indonesia in 1999.

A non government organization, the Institution for Study and
Advocacy (Elsam), has attributed what it says is the weak
indictment in the East Timor cases to the fact that prosecutors
failed to relate the incidents between April to September 1999
"without relating them to previous happenings," which is crucial
to build a case of widespread and/or systematic rights abuses.

Political analyst Arbi Sanit of the University of Indonesia
said the acquittals of the generals indicated the TNI was on its
way back to the center stage of politics.

The Military was "riding a wind" that would blow even stronger
should retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono be elected
president in the Sept. 20 election, he said.

Separately on Thursday, Attorney General's Office spokesman
Kemas Yahya Rahman said prosecutors were not to blame for the
acquittals of generals.

He said his office had tried its best to indict all human
rights defendants, including military officers.

"Prosecutors in the trials of generals have presented strong
evidence, but unfortunately the judges had their own
interpretations of the evidence when making their decisions,"
Kemas said.

He said the sentencing demands for between five and 10 years
jail for the charged generals showed prosecutors were serious in
taking human rights abuses to court.