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udge and lawyers defending M. Rasyid Amrullah Rajasa, who is standing trial for reckless driving resulting in death and injury, questioned the safety of the Daihatsu Luxio minivan hit by Rasyid’s BMW X5, during a trial hearing on Monday.

The issue was raised after evidence emerged showing that the interior of the minivan, which was intended as a family vehicle, had been altered to one resembling a public minivan, with two rows of seats facing each other and parallel with the minivan’s body.

Presiding judge Suharjono asked Anjar Roshadi, 37, an expert witness from PT Astra Daihatsu Motor, which built the minivan, whether a modified vehicle could be less safe than a standard one.

“Would changing seats to face each other carry a higher risk for the passengers?” he asked the witness.

Anjar said it would. “If the door was opened, the possibility of passengers sitting on [parallel-running] seats being thrown from the car would be higher than for those sitting on regular [forward-facing] seats,” he said.

Five people who were sitting at the rear of the minivan were thrown out from the vehicle after it was rear-
ended by the youngest son of Coordinating Economic Minister and National Mandate Party (PAN) chairman Hatta Rajasa on the Jakarta inner-city toll road early on New Year’s Day.

The accident claimed two lives: 14-month-old Raihan and Harun, 57, and injured three others. Rasyid is charged under Article 310 for reckless driving of the 2009 Traffic and Transportation Law, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a fine of Rp 12 million (US$1,200).

Raysid’s lawyer, Ananta, also questioned whether the minivan’s door lock may have been too loose if it was frequently opened to let passengers in and out, and whether it would be dangerous if the back door, designed for loading and unloading goods, was instead used for passengers.

Anjar said that although the back door was designed for goods, there would be no problem if it was used for passengers.

Rasyid’s other lawyer, Riri Purbasari Dewi, previously admitted that Rasyid had hit the minivan, but she remained skeptical as to whether the impact had caused the passengers to fall out of the vehicle. She said her team believed the Luxio driver was also responsible for the accident. “How could a car that had been hit end up so far from Rasyid’s car?”, she earlier said in a separate interview. “Who knows if the driver [tried] to run away,” she said.

She also claimed, based on the degree of damage sustained by Rasyid’s car, that the impact of the crash was not so forceful as to cause people to be thrown out, suggesting instead that the minivan’s back door may have opened if the driver had forgotten to lock it.

The next hearing is due to take place on Thursday. (cor)