Zarina's father loses lawsuit against police

JAKARTA (JP): The South Jakarta District Court ruled on Friday in favor of City Police headquarters by declaring that last month's arrest of drug suspect Zarina Mirafsur was lawful.

The court rejected the lawsuit filed earlier this month by Zarina's father Mirafsur Khan, who accused the city police of violating procedures in the Nov. 11 arrest of Zarina and her boyfriend Ahian Santoso alias Yeye.

"The arrest by city police officers was in accordance with paragraph 2, article 18 of the Criminal Code Procedure," Judge I Gde Putra Yadnya said at the hearing.

He said city police did not need an arrest warrant to make the arrest lawful because the suspects were apprehended in possession of the drugs.

Paragraph 2, article 18 of the Criminal Code Procedure stipulates that an arrest without a warrant is acceptable only if the duty officers immediately hand over the suspects and the evidence to other police officers who would take over the inquiry.

At a previous hearing, Mirafsur's lawyers told judge Putra that the city police officers arrested Zarina and Yeye without an arrest warrant.

The lawyers were referring to paragraph 1, article 18 of the Criminal Code Procedure, which regulates that the police must show an arrest warrant to suspects before arresting them.

The two police detectives who carried out the arrest later admitted at the hearing that they did not possess a warrant during the arrest.

Judge Putra said the police could arrest suspects at any time and in any place as long as they were able to seize sufficient initial evidence from the suspects, an action regulated in article 17 of the Criminal Code Procedure.

He said the police seized from Zarina and Yeye one gram of shabu-shabu (crystal methamphetamine), a bong, aluminum foil and a small scale during the raid at Hotel Mercure in West Jakarta.

The judge said Yeye had conceded that Zarina owned the drug.

"Yeye tipped off Zarina as the drug owner in the police report," he told the hearing.

Mirafsur was represented by lawyers M. Amin and Petrus Bala Pattyona. The city police was represented by Capt. Barnabas Iman S. and First. Lt. Maryoto.

Judge Putra said the court dismissed Mirafsur's accusation that city police had violated the people's basic rights during the arrest.

"The plaintiff was not able to provide evidence to the court which could prove the accusation that the arrest was against human rights principles," he said.

At a previous hearing, Mirafsur's lawyers accused city police of conducting from Nov. 11 to Nov. 13 swift interrogations of Zarina.

Zarina filed last month a similar lawsuit, but the court rejected it on the grounds of a legal technicality.

The court dropped the lawsuit because Zarina's lawyers did not have a letter appointing them to represent her in court.

Zarina is currently detained at Tangerang Women's Penitentiary, after her conditional release was revoked last month by Minister of Law and Legislation Yusril Ihza Mahendra.

Dubbed by the media as the Ecstasy Queen, Zarina was sentenced in 1996 to four years in jail for storing some 30,000 ecstasy pills in the same year. She was granted a conditional release last year for good behavior.

Y.W. Mere, a prosecutor at the Jakarta Prosecutors' Office, said on Monday the West Jakarta District Court would hear the recent charges against Zarina in the near future. (asa)