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Issues of the day: AGO defends light sentence for Hai Fa

Guilty: MV Hai Fa captain Zhu Nian Le (left), accompanied by an interpreter, stands trial at the National Fisheries Court in Ambon on March 16

The Jakarta Post
Thu, April 2, 2015

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Issues of the day: AGO defends light sentence for Hai Fa

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span class="inline inline-center">Guilty: MV Hai Fa captain Zhu Nian Le (left), accompanied by an interpreter, stands trial at the National Fisheries Court in Ambon on March 16. He was found guilty of violating Indonesian fisheries laws. Antara/Embong Salampessy

March 30, p2

The Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) say its prosecutors should not be blamed for the lenient punishment of a Rp 200 million (US$15,300) fine handed down by an Ambon court to a Chinese vessel of 4,306 gross tons, MV Hai Fa, the biggest ship the government has ever captured for illegal fishing in Indonesia.

The court approved on Friday the Maluku Prosecutor'€™s Office request to order the captain of the Chinese vessel, identified as Zhu Nian Le, to pay the fine for illegally catching 900 tons of fish and prawns as well as 66 tons of hammerhead sharks and oceanic whitetip sharks, which, according to the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, had caused Rp 70 billion in state losses. The prosecutors did not criminally charge the ship'€™s captain or operator.

Attorney General M. Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post on Sunday that Maluku prosecutors had crafted their sentence demand based on the evidence and dossiers submitted by Navy investigators and that there was no reason to blame prosecutors for the verdict.


Your comments:

Let'€™s just remember why the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was created back in 2003.

It was created because the AGO was known to be one of the most corrupt institutions in the country.

Yet now high-profile police corruption cases are being taken from the KPK and handed back to the AGO, which has promptly dropped all charges.

Basically, President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo has taken Indonesia back to 2003 and guess who was in charge then?

About Rp 70 billion worth of stolen fish and the fine was only Rp 200 million? That means the value of the stolen resources was 350 times the size of the fine.

That'€™s like stealing a $1 million and being given a $3,000 fine. The word pitiful does not suffice in this case.

If the court was seriously doing its best, this is grossly incompetent.

However, the suspicion has to be that '€˜'€™facilitation money'€™'€™ found its way into the pockets of the judge in order to reach this ludicrous decision.

Lasem Benny


Jail the captain, fine the company, fine the individual crew members and sell the vessel, with the proceeds going to the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.

Cry F .

Is it not standard practice to blow up ships caught illegally fishing in Indonesian waters?

Or does that only apply to smaller countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines?

These sovereign laws of the country are hard for ordinary folks to follow.

Abu Abu

It would be preferable not to blow any ship, hence save valuable material and avoid polluting the sea a bit more.

It is ironic that ships are blown up by the Navy, which is perhaps the institution that most benefits the most from illegal fishing.

Jan Karl

This country is full of laws that don'€™t make sense. People get a slap on the wrist for major offenses.

The attorney general has the audacity to tell the public '€œyou don'€™t understand the law.'€

This attorney general should stop abusing citizens and get about drafting some proper laws.

Acropolous

How dare he say we '€œknow nothing'€? You are most welcome to educate us, so we know.

Kantisini

Let'€™s face the truth. Your country is terrified it might upset China.

Indonesia goes weak in the knees for anything that might upset China.

The ship should have been seized and burned.

Zebra

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