Police Extortion Leads Family to Goat Shed

April 12, 2010

(here is the story from the beginning)

Indramayu, West Java. Darmi is no Gayus Tambunan, whose case is gripping the nation and opens the door to bring corrupt officials to justice, but she is a living symbol of just how powerful and heartless the so-called judicial mafia can be.

For the past month Darmi, 35, and her six children — from 18 months to 13 years of age — have been living in a 1.5-by-2-meter goat shed and surviving on the generosity of their neighbors after a rogue police officer allegedly extorted money from her in exchange for dropping murder charges against her husband, Kadana, 40.

“My husband was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He passed a rice field one afternoon and discovered that its owner had been brutally murdered,” Darmi told the Jakarta Globe. “The victim’s family saw my husband at the scene and reported him to the police.”

She said the incident led to a series of shakedowns by Adj. Insp. Nana Sudana, a young police officer assigned to the Indramayu precinct.

“My friend [at the police station] is ready to beat your husband up,” Darmi said Nana told her. The officer “promised to keep my husband from being beaten up if I provided Rp 6 million.”

But the officer did not stop there, she said.

“The following week he contacted us again, this time asking for Rp 3 million more for the prosecutors’ office,” Darmi said, adding that eventually she paid more than Rp 14.3 million ($1,590) in bribes.

Kadana’s brother Chasnawi, 50, said that just to visit Kadana in the Indramayu penitentiary where he was detained, the family had to pay at least Rp 150,000 per visit. “If I didn’t do that, I could forget about seeing my brother,” he told the Globe.

For a farmer’s wife like Darmi, the amount she had to pay in bribes was devastatingly high. She said she had to sell her house, a simple four-by-five-meter wooden structure on 50 square meters of land, for only Rp 10 million, along with every­thing else she had, in a desperate effort to cope with the officer’s demands.

The house, made from tree bark and used lumber, was covered in woven bamboo barely thick enough to protect the family from rain and the cold of the night. But it was a far cry from the goat shed she now occupies. Even for a goat, the condition of the shed is not ideal, she said.

During the day, Darmi and her family have to endure the scorching heat, while at night she struggles to keep them warm amid constant leaks. For several weeks they slept on a plastic mat, trying hard to ignore the smell of the goat that once occupied the shed, she said.

It was not until recently that her neighbors donated two mattresses for the family to sleep on.

All this they suffered in the belief that the murder case would go away. But on Tuesday, Kadana and his family were surprised when the Indramayu District Court found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

“Kadana was outraged,” Chasnawi said, after which the family decided to report to the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force.

On Thursday, the team transferred Kadana and invited his family to Jakarta. Task force secretary Denny Indrayana, who visited Darmi on Friday along with several officials from the National Police, said the team promised Kadana and his family protection and contacted the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK).

“The case serves as an example that poor people like Kadana are the true victims of the judicial mafia. Case brokers do not care if a person is rich or poor, they ruthlessly suck a person dry,” Denny said.

The head of the Indramayu precinct, Adj. Chief Comr. Nasri Wiharto, said the rogue officer had been arrested and was charged with violating Article 378 of the Criminal Code on extortion, which carries a maximum sentence of four years behind bars.

“We will conduct both an internal investigation over allegations of misconduct and a separate criminal investigation. We will ensure that whoever is involved will be punished,” Nasri said.

“We are still investigating all allegations against the suspect. Based on other reports, this is not the first time Nana has committed abuses of power and acts of extortion.”

April 08, 2010







The Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force on Thursday agreed to examine a criminal case involving a farmer from Indramayu, West Java, who claimed to have been extorted by a police officer.

Forty-year-old Kadana told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday that he had spent millions of rupiah after he was accused of murdering a neighbor.

Kadana said an officer from the Karangampel Police subprecinct approached him and promised to get the charges dropped in exchange for a sum of money. Kadana said he then sold all of his property to raise the cash.

For the past month, the farmer’s wife, Darmi, 35, and their six children, between the ages of 18 months and 13 years, have been living in a goat shed owned by a neighbor.

Kadana said his family was only able to survive thanks to the generosity of neighbors who provided them with rice.

“It breaks my heart seeing my children unable to go to school and eat nothing but rice. If not for the kindness of people in my village, I don’t know where my family would sleep at night,” Kadana told the Globe at the task force’s office in Central Jakarta.

Kadana said he was forced to sell his house below market price because he was desperate to pay off the officer.

“What else could I do? I had no choice but to do what he said,” he said. “I didn’t do anything and was nowhere near [the victim], but the police insisted that they had several witnesses who put me at the scene of the crime.”

Kadana said he sold his house for Rp 10 million [$1,000], an extremely low price even in a rural area like Karangampel, because he was desperate to raise the Rp 14.3 million that the police officer was demanding.

“I tried my best, borrowing money from everyone I know. First he asked for Rp 6 million. Later he told me he needed another Rp 4 million for the Indramayu Police precinct and so on and so on,” Kadana said.

“He kept extorting me. I even had to walk 10 kilometers just to deliver his money because I ran out of money to pay for transportation,” the farmer added.

Kadana said that despite paying the officer, the Indramayu District Court sentenced him to seven years in prison on Tuesday.

“I was outraged. I couldn’t believe that a police officer could extort a poor person like me,” he said.

Denny Indrayana, secretary of the presidentially appointed task force, said a special report that ran on Metro TV on Wednesday evening had brought the case to the team’s attention.

On Thursday, the team had Kadana transferred to Jakarta and promised him and his family protection. Several task force members have traveled to Indramayu to gather more information.

“This case serves as an example that poor people like Kadana are the real victims of the judicial mafia. Case brokers do not care if a person is rich or poor, they ruthlessly suck a person dry,” Denny said.

“We hope that Kadana will be able to identify the rogue officer who extorted him, along with his accomplices,” he added.

Indonesia Corruption Watch said the case could serve as a lesson to people not to deal with case brokers.

“There are countless cases where suspects are tricked by people or officers claiming they can get a criminal prosecution dropped. More often than not it’s a trick and they lose millions in the process,” ICW deputy chairman Emerson Yuntho said.

“The only way is to face justice. Underprivileged people can seek the help of the Legal Aid Foundation or similar nonprofit groups. There is absolutely no reason for them to meet rogue officers’ demands for a payoff.”

June 06, 2011

Indramayu, West Java. More than a year has passed since a tiny goat shed in the sleepy town of Karangasem in West Java’s northeast featured prominently in national media.

Today, the shed still stands, albeit almost submerged from view by tall weeds, a little more weathered by months of exposure to the harsh elements.

Inside, its occupants, a doe and two of her young, lay dormant and fatigued as the sun’s scorching rays heat the structure. Constructed from tree bark and used lumber, the shed leaks constantly, making it a struggle to keep warm after nightfall.

Even for animals, the condition of the shed is not ideal, but a year ago, 36-year-old Darmi and her five children had to call the 1.5-by-2-meter structure home.

The Ordeal Begins

In July 2009, her husband, Kadana, was arrested on suspicion of murder after witnesses said he had been near the scene of a crime. His family claimed that Kadana was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Regardless of what actually happened, the incident led to a series of shakedowns by Adj. Insp. Nana Sudana, a young police officer assigned to the Indramayu precinct.

Illiterate and having no experience with the law, Darmi agreed to the police officer’s demand for a payoff under the belief that the murder charges would go away. She was forced to sell her house, the 50-square-meter piece of land on which her home stood and nearly all of her belongings to a loan shark out of desperation.

Upon paying a total of Rp 14.3 million in bribes ($1,600), she was left penniless and homeless for nine months. Still, her husband was found guilty of murdering the son of another farmer and sentenced to seven years in prison.

A Bit of Hope

About a year after their nightmare began, there seemed hope things would turn around after the presidentially appointed Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force became aware of the situation.

Kadana’s brother Chasnawi was asked to appear alongside task force member Denny Indrayana in a talk show on TV.

After listening to Kadana’s ordeal, “I became enraged. Many times I clenched my fist in anger, trying hard not to show my emotion. I struggled not to break down in tears,” Denny wrote on the task force’s official Web site. According to the Web entry, dated Feb. 11, Denny was so devastated by this case that the fight against corruption became personal for him.

The task force managed to get the rogue police officer to return his ill-gotten fortune. Early this year, the officer’s wife returned the money along with words of apologies for the suffering the family had to endure.

The task force’s involvement also gave the case leverage with former Indramayu district head Irianto Syafiudin, who at the time was running to get re-elected. He leased a house for Kadana’s family for one year, excluding utility bills.

However, the Rp 14 million Darmi obtained from the officer’s wife was not enough for her to buy back her property from the loan shark to whom she had handed over every possession at a fraction of the normal price.

The money was only enough to buy a piece of land no larger than 30 square meters. The house that stands on it was built largely with donated materials.

Darmi and her five children now live cramped into a 6-by-4 meter, one bedroom home. Though all six members of the family have to share one kapok-filled mattress for sleeping, playing, studying and sometimes even eating, this is still preferable to the compacted soil that serves as the floor.

“Someone donated 1,000 bricks, so we built this home. For weeks the bricks just laid there because I couldn’t afford cement,” Darmi told the Jakarta Globe. Eventually another man donated cement just to keep the bricks standing but not enough to keep the brick walls waterproof and adorned.

The bedroom and the rest of the house are partitioned to allow light from the living room to seep through because Darmi can only afford to pay electricity for one light bulb.

Not Quite a Happy Ending

To this day, the task force continues use Kadana’s case as a living example of just how powerful and heartless the judicial mafia can be. The case is listed as one of its greatest achievements, alongside other cases like that of disgraced tax official Gayus Tambunan, who amassed over Rp 100 billion in ill-gotten wealth.

But what the task force Web site fails to mention is that a year after it deployed to the village to meet Kadana’s wife and brothers and publicly promise justice and protection to Kadana, the 41-year-old farmer is still not reunited with his family.

“In prison,” his 9-year-old daughter said when asked about her father’s fate. Despite mounting evidence that officials tried to extort money from him during the legal process, judges at the Supreme Court deemed the case to be unrelated to his charges and still found him guilty of murder. Kadana is now serving a seven-year jail term in Cirebon penitentiary.

His eldest brother, Rasidi, said that contrary to the task force’s pledge legal assistance was never made available to Kadana, whose poor education and naivete made him an easy prey for rogue law enforcers.

“I exhausted all of my resources for my brother Kadana. I went to Indramayu [court], to Bandung [court] and to Jakarta [Supreme Court] armed with this [extortion] evidence. But we are just peasants who haven’t finished elementary school. We can’t do anything,” Rasidi said.

“Denny came here just that one time in April last year. Actually, I’m dying to meet him again and ask him what we should do to get my brother out of prison. I never expected much from the task force. I understand they’re busy people. Just tell us what to do.”

Officer Back on the Beat

The task force also failed to keep track of the fate of the rogue officer, who according to the Indramayu Police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Nasri Wiharto, had been reinstated with full rank after only serving three months in detention.

“What? This is a shock for us. The officer should be fired and charged for criminal offense and not just face administrative sanctions,” task force member Mas Achmad Santosa told the Globe when asked for comment. “We will ask the National Police about this. He shouldn’t have gotten away with extortion.”

Santosa acknowledged the team had failed to monitor the developments of the case but said its reach was limited.

“It is impossible for us to keep track of every case on a day-to-day basis. We only have six permanent members and 30 staffers and we have received 4,500 complaints [since 2009],” he said.

“When we agreed to take Kadana’s case, he was already convicted by the Indramayu court. We cannot interfere with the court’s independence but what we can do is reform the system within the police force so there won’t be more cases like Kadana’s in the future.”

After the task force received credit for exposing the workings of the judicial mafia, Kadana’s relatives felt abandoned, but his case is hardly unique in this sense. Gayus, the former taxman whose case symbolized how entrenched corruption is in the country, has said that he also felt neglected after spilling the beans to the task force.

In great detail, Gayus described how he bribed law enforcers to escape a money-laundering charge and how companies paid him off to lower their taxes. He was so convinced by the task force’s pledge of protection that he came out of hiding in Singapore and returned to Indonesia.

But when time came for him to face justice, Gayus was alone. Twice, the task force said it was too busy to provide defense witnesses to tell of mitigating circumstances in a case with an overwhelming amount of incriminating evidence.

Disappointed over his seven-year sentence and the task force’s notable absence throughout his trial, Gayus struck back at the team saying that the task force had forced him to confess. The disgraced tax official is now undergoing a third trial, this time for falsifying a passport to travel.

But Kadana is no Gayus, and Darmi now has to earn a living on her own. She earns Rp 400,000 a month as a field hand, barely enough to feed her children and send them to school.

“I am a simple woman. What matters to me is that we have a roof over our heads,” Darmi said. “I wish my husband were free. If I had to live in a goat shed again for the rest of my life just to see my husband free, I would do it.”

Family unity matters most for Darmi, both in times of joy and in times of adversity. “Mangan ora mangan sing penting ngumpul,” she quoted a Javanese saying: “Food or no food, we must stay together.”



(All x the JG)