Jakarta – The public prosecutor says that the lawyers representing six Papua activists indicted on charges of treason and criminal conspiracy do not understand legal classifications after they questioned the failure to include Article 87 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) in the indictment.
The prosecutor is of the view that this article is a stipulation which provides an interpretation of the understanding of makar (treason, rebellion, subversion) which is stipulated under Article 106 and 110 of the KUHP. These are the two articles being used to charge the six defendants.
The prosecution conveyed this in reference to the stipulations of Article 143 of the Criminal Procedural Code (KUHAP) and Supreme Court Circular Number 004/JA/11/1993 in conjunction with Deputy Attorney General for General Crimes (JAM PIDUM) Circular Number B-607/E/11/1993.
“The stipulations of Article 87 of the KUHP do not need to be included in the indictment because the indictment lists charges against the actions of the defendants along with the locus and tempus delicti [place and time of an incident]”, said Prosecutor P Permana at the Central Jakarta District Court on Monday January 20.
The prosecutor stated that they drafted the indictment based on legislation and the doctrine and guidelines on judicial practices. Based on this, the prosecutor asked the panel of judges to reject all of the demurrer presented by the defendants’ lawyers.
“Based on this clarification, it can be concluded that the lawyers’ objections to the indictment are objections which have no basis and should be ignored”, said the prosecutor.
The team of lawyers representing Surya Anta Ginting and five other Papuan activists presented a demurrer or objection to the public prosecutor’s indictment during a hearing at the Central Jakarta District Court on Monday January 6.
In the demurrer, the legal team said that the prosecution’s indictment was imprecise, unclear and incomplete because it did not explain the meaning of makar which Anta and the other defendants are charged with.
“There was not one sentence in the indictment which explains the meaning of makar or a benchmark of [what constitutes] an act of makar, so this has created confusion on the part of the defendants, their lawyers and the public over the prosecutor’s charges”, lawyer Tigor Hutapea said in reading out the demurrer.
According to Hutapea, the prosecutor should also include Article 87 of the KUHP which states that the benchmark for an act of makar is when there is concrete intent prior to the act being committed. In the incitement however, the prosecutor failed to explain this.
“Thus we request that the panel of judges declare that the public prosecutor’s indictment be thrown out for the sake of the law because it does not include the stipulations included in Article 87 of the KUHP”, he said. (ryn/fea)
Notes
Article 143 of the Criminal Procedural Code actually stipulates that an indictment must contain a thorough, clear and detailed description of the criminal action committed, otherwise it should be declared void by law.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “Jaksa Sebut Pengacara Surya Anta Cs Tidak Paham Hukum”.]
