March 28, 2012
Bandung. Hundreds of law enforcement officials swarmed the home of a disgraced district head in West Java early on Wednesday morning as he was brought in to begin serving a five-year jail sentence for embezzlement.
Eep Hidayat, the former head of Subang district, did not put up a fight when the officials arrived at his home in Cigadung subdistrict.
He was found guilty by the Supreme Court and sentenced to five years in prison earlier this year, but his lawyer cried foul over the way Eep was brought in.
Abdy Yuhana said it was illegal to take Eep into custody and make him begin serving the sentence because he had never received a copy of the Supreme Court’s verdict. He said the incident set a bad legal precedent.
“This is a legal problem that needs to be straightened out,” the lawyer said.
“You cannot ignore the law that regulates the legal process. This is a bad precedent for law enforcement, for a state ruled by law. Legal certainty with reference to the Criminal Code is being ignored. This blurs legal certainty, and we will fight it.”
Abdy said he would file a legal review challenging the whole case against Eep.
“We are going to focus on a legal review, to counter everything the Subang district head has been accused of,” he said.
He also criticized the way prosecutors handled things on Wednesday morning, saying it was unnecessary to send hundreds of people just to pick up his client, who was not resisting.
“It was inappropriate for the prosecutor’s office to take the Subang district head into custody like this, at half past midnight and with a company of police. Especially when his case, in my opinion, remains controversial,” he said.
“This is a problem. I have said repeatedly that Eep respects the law, but the institution that found him guilty should also respect legal norms. My client promised to turn himself in to the prosecutor’s office on April 2. There is no way he would flee.”
Eep who earlier failed to turn himself in voluntarily, did not resist when officers from the West Java High Court and Subang District Court took him in.
“He was cooperative and didn’t fight,” the head of the West Java High Court, Yuswa Kusumah, said during a press conference in Bandung on Wednesday.
Yuswa said that Eep listened as officials explained why he was being taken in and went along willingly.
“We took Eep to the High Court first to complete the administrative process and then we brought him to Sukamiskin penitentiary at about 5:30 a.m.,” Yuswa said.
Eep was initially charged with embezzling property and development tax revenue amounting to Rp 2.4 billion ($264,000) between 2005 and 2008.
He was acquitted by the Bandung Anti-Corruption Court after state auditors testified that there had been no state losses as a result of Eep’s actions.
Prosecutors appealed the Supreme Court, which in February found Eep guilty of embezzling tax revenue amounting to Rp 14 billion. The court sentenced him to five years in prison.
It also fined him Rp 200 million ($22,000) fine and ordered him to return the Rp 2.5 billion that he stole from the state.
(this x the JG)
wo 28 maa 2012 - 19:48