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Lawyer claims wrongful arrest in murder trial

A 27-year-old man is facing the maximum sentence of death after being charged with premeditated murder in a crime that according to his lawyer was committed by someone else during a brawl

Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, November 26, 2015

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Lawyer claims wrongful arrest in murder trial

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27-year-old man is facing the maximum sentence of death after being charged with premeditated murder in a crime that according to his lawyer was committed by someone else during a brawl.

Johannes Gea, a lawyer appointed by the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) to represent the accused Didit Aditianto, said Wednesday that the police used very weak evidence to arrest his client and the focus of their case was to get a murder confession from Didit.

'€œIn the end, the police finally got the confession after endlessly torturing my client when he was arrested,'€ Gea told The Jakarta Post. The case has been submitted to the Bekasi District Court and is currently on trial.

Gea said Didit'€™s case added to a list of wrongful arrest cases handled by LBH Jakarta. LBH Jakarta said that in the past five years 16 of its clients were acquitted by the courts as the judges found the police and the prosecutors had brought innocent people to trial.

Didit was arrested on June 21 along with five of his friends at a boarding house in Margahayu, Bekasi, West Java, following a brawl between residents of Margahayu and Rawasemut in Bekasi that took place on Jl. Chairil Anwar.

Police believed the six possessed information related to the death of Yosafat Hutabarat, 19, a Rawasemut resident, that took place soon after the street brawl. The victim'€™s body was found with a slash wound in the back.

After a series of interrogations, the police named Didit the only suspect in the murder case and released the other five men. Police also seized a cocor bebek, a weapon that looks like a sickle, and declared it to be the murder weapon. Prosecutors subsequently charged Didit under Article 340 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) for premeditated murder.

Gea acknowledged that Didit was around the crime scene during the incident to see the brawl. Nevertheless, he said there was no single solid piece of evidence that indicated his client was Yosafat'€™s murderer.

'€œFive other people said Didit was not guilty and one of them said he spotted another unidentified man stabbing Yosafat,'€ Gea continued. '€œHis information, of course, was not used by the police as it did not support their claim.'€

During Wednesday'€™s hearing at the Bekasi District Court, forensics expert Ferryal Basbeth told the judicial panel that it was highly unlikely the wound on the victim'€™s back was caused by a cocor bebek, as it would have been caused by a sharp-edged weapon.

According to Ferryal, the weapon seized by the police did not have a sharp edge and, therefore, would have caused a different type of wound than the one suffered by the victim.

'€œI don'€™t think the wound was made by the cocor bebek. There is a high possibility that it was not the murder weapon,'€ she said.

Gea said the police did not carry out any scientific examinations, including a fingerprint check or a blood test to match the murder weapon with his client. '€œThey only wanted Didit to confess and did not bother to examine the rest of the evidence,'€ he said.

Recently, Bekasi Police spokesperson Adj. Comr. Siswo told Kompas that the police had followed the right procedures in investigating Didit'€™s case. '€œIf he is really innocent, he should submit a pretrial motion. This is a lawful country, right?'€ Siswo said.

The most recent wrongful conviction and arrest took place in June when the Jakarta High Court overturned the manslaughter conviction of an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver named Dedi.

Previously, Dedi had been sentenced to two years in prison by the East Jakarta District Court after the East Jakarta Police arrested him on Sept. 25, 2014, for his alleged involvement in an attack on a minivan driver near the Cililitan wholesale shopping center in East Jakarta.

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