Zarina's father loses lawsuit against police

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)