13 officers face trial for bungled case

The Jakarta Post, ,  Surabaya   |  Wed, 12/31/2008 10:50 AM  |  East Java

Besides facing departmental sanctions, 13 investigators, including the chief of police of Jombang, will be brought to court in relation to their alleged mishandling of the investigation into a murder case that landed three innocent villagers in jail, provincial police chief Insp. Gen. Herman S. Sumawiredja said.

Evaluating this year's crime and the police response to it in the province recently, Herman said if the 13 were found guilty of using violence in carrying out the investigation they had to stand trial before the civilian court.

"Justice must be upheld to ensure the law enforcement and all citizens are equal before the law," Antara quoted him as saying.

The 13 low and middle ranking police officers went on trial before a code of ethics honorary council seeking the imposition of departmental sanctions on them for their procedural errors in carrying out the investigation of the murder case.

In May, Imam Khambali (AKA Kemat) and Devid, both residents of Bandar Kedungmulyo village in Jombang, were sentenced by the Jombang District Court to 17 and 12 years imprisonment respectively after they were found guilty in the murder case. A third wrongly convicted, Mamak Sugianto (AKA Sugik), received 15 years imprisonment. The first two were recently released and the latter was acquitted of charges after the Supreme Court reopened the case with new evidence from the police.

According to a DNA test conducted by provincial police, the body recovered in a sugarcane field in the village in September 2007 belonged to Fauzin Sugianto and not to Asrori, the murder of whom the three were detained for.

This was supported by the confession of serial killer Very Idham Henyansyah (AKA Ryan) who said he killed Asrori and buried his body near his parents' house. In a further investigation, the police arrested Rudi, a resident of Kediri who allegedly murdered Fauzin, as he was paying the tax on Fauzin's motorcycle at the Sidoarjo police office.

Herman said all police personnel linked directly and indirectly with the murder case would be held responsible and would stand trial before the civilian court.

He, however, said that not only the police but also prosecutors and the panel of judges who were trying the case should be held responsible for the erroneous trial.

"If the police are 40 percent responsible for the wrongful investigation, prosecutors and judges contribute the remaining 60 percent," he said, adding that if the police investigators carried out the investigation professionally and did not use violence to obtain a confession from the innocent people they would have had a different story.

He said that what was he was doing was giving fair compensation to the three innocent people who had pledged not to file a lawsuit against the law enforcers for the wrongful investigation and trial.

He said he would donate his monthly pay to the three villagers if the police had no special budget to pay the compensation.

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