The Jakarta Globe, September 6, 2013
The special forces sergeant who drove his Kopassus colleagues to Cebongan prison to execute four inmates was told by a military tribunal today that assisting in multiple counts of premeditated murder was not sufficient grounds to be discharged from Indonesia’s armed forces.
“The defendant has been found convincingly guilty of assisting a murder,” presiding judge Lieut.Col. Joko Sasmito told the court.
Second Sgt. Ikhmawan Suprapto drove Second Sgt. Ucok Tigor Simbolon, Second Sgt. Sugeng Sumaryanto and First Corporal Kodik to Cebongan prison, where the latter three men killed four prison inmates as they stood in their cells.
The prosecution was able to prove that Ikhmawan was guilty of “assisting a murder” but it demanded only an 18-month prison sentence for the special forces sergeant. In the end, Ikhmawan received just 15 months jail time.
Haris Azhar, the coordinator for the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said the sentence was far too lenient.
“I believe he knew exactly what his comrades were planning to do. It’s impossible for him to be totally ignorant. It was a shared responsibility so the sentence should be just as harsh, but instead he was not even discharged from the service,” he said. “He will be back in the military in a few months.”
Amnesty International concurred.
“He should obviously not serve in the armed forces,” said Isabel Arradon, Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific deputy director. ”But the whole system needs to change.”
The three remaining soldiers to be tried for the killings were found guilty, but told by Lieut.Col. Faridah Faisal that they were free to go because of time served.
“We command that the defendants be released from their temporary detention,” Faridah told the Yogyakarta military court Friday, as reported by Indonesian news portal Tempo.co.
Second Sgt. Rakhmadi, Second Sgt. Zaenuri and Sgt. Sutar were found guilty of failing to report a violation of the military code — they knew Ucok was on his way to kill the four prison inmates.
“Because of their actions, their superiors failed to prevent the incident,” Faridah said.
Sutar was guarding a security post on Mar. 22 when a car carrying Ucok left the military compound. Sutar reported this to Rakhmadi and Zainuri, who later went to Yogyakarta to try to reason with Ucok, the court found.
Prosecutors had demanded an eight-month jail term for the three men for failing to report what was about to happen to their superiors, but the judge handed down only four months and 20 days.
The defendants’ lawyer, Lieut.Col Syarif Hidayat said his clients were still considering whether to file an appeal.
While acknowledging that an open court, albeit one run by the military itself, handing down prison sentences to members of the armed forces was instructive of a degree of progress in TNI transparency and accountability, activists emphasized that the narrow remit the military had given itself in investigating the crime was to be regretted.
Haris said the investigation should not have stopped at the 12 defendants convicted.
“I don’t understand why the trial focused on what happened on Mar. 22, which was actually triggered by a series of occurrences on Mar. 19,” he said.
Shortly after the fight at Hugo’s cafe that led to the death of First Sarg. Santoso, a SMS spread among military personnel said the perpetrators would be targeted.
Amnesty also warned that the case should remain under the microscope.
“Some have been convicted yesterday and today, but many are acquitted on appeal. It’s the responsibility of everyone to keep monitoring these cases.”
Eighteen people convicted by an ad-hoc Human Rights Court in Jakarta for human-rights abuses during the 1999 referendum in East Timor later had their convictions overturned by the same court.
Lawyers for Ucok, Sugeng and Kodik said on Thursday that they would be appealing their respective jail sentences of 11, eight and six years.
On the question of whether the government could have handled the case differently, the verdict from Amnesty was that more needed to be done.
“We respect the independence of the Indonesian judiciary, but what President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono could do would be to send a stronger message,” Arradon said. “He could take further steps toward a Truth Commission for Aceh and revise the law on military courts to have personnel tried in civilian courts.
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vr 6 sep 2013 - 23:35