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ndro Supriyanto, 21, a street performer, recalled the night he spent with his friend in the custody of the Jakarta Police. He was beaten, kicked, stripped naked and subjected to electric shocks as the police’s interrogators forced him to confess to a murder he did not commit.

A damaged left shoulder and protruding breastbones serve as a reminder of the night he will never forget.

“Our eyes were covered with duct tape so we could barely tell what was in store for us,” Andro said as he jumped out of a Metro Mini with a guitar in his left hand and a handful of coins in his right, in Cipulir, South Jakarta. “We were beaten like animals by a lot of cops.”

Andro’s story began on June 30, 2013 when he and five street-performer friends, one adult and four children, were sitting under a bridge in Cipulir and spotted a man lying on the ground waving his hand at them, signaling for help.

The man, despite being in critical condition with several stab wounds on his neck and head, refused help from the street performers, who offered to carry him to the nearest police station or hospital. They gave him water and sensed that he did not have much time left. Shortly after, like flies swarming around rotten food, a crowd of police officers arrived at the scene and asked if someone could go to police station to testify. The street performers raised their hands, saying they were ready to be witnesses.

It was the worst decision they ever made as the police soon afterward declared them suspects in the case. An officer at the Jakarta Police then hit Andro on the head and told him to confess to the murder. “Of course we denied the accusation, but it only made the cops angrier and continue to beat and kick us,” he said.

Under duress, the street performers confessed to the murder. Andro said the officers looked satisfied with their confession, which is an important piece of evidence in the nation’s judicial system.

On Oct. 1, 2013, the South Jakarta District Court declared the teenagers — identified only as FP, BF, F and APS — guilty in the murder, and handed down three-to-four-year prison sentences, while Andro and another adult defendant, Nurdin Priyanto, got seven years’ imprisonment in a separate trial.

In an unexpected turn of events, a former legal aid lawyer that led Andro’s defense team, Johannes Gea, presented a man who confessed to the police that he and two others killed the victim to steal his motorcycle. But the police refused to follow up on the confession, saying that the case was closed and asked the man to go home.

The street performers appealed their conviction and were exonerated by the Jakarta High Court and Supreme Court.

They later sued the police at the South Jakarta District Court, which ruled in their favor on Tuesday and ordered the police and the Finance Ministry to pay Andro and Nurdin Rp 36 million (US$2,756) in compensation each for their wrongful arrests.

Wrongful arrest is pervasive in Jakarta, Arif Maulana from The Jakarta Legal Aid (LBH Jakarta) said. “With the police and prosecutors still lacking professionalism, there are many other cases like Andro and Dedi out there,” Arif said.

Torture has long been a “habit” among police officers, who do not seem to recognize suspects’ right to a lawyer, he said, adding that wrongful arrest cases continued to land on LBH Jakarta’s desk.

Arif said Andro and Nurdin’s successful claim for material compensation was a landmark court decision, as similar attempts in the past had been rejected by the courts.

The police said they would conduct an evaluation to prevent similar incidents from happening again. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) rejects responsibility for what happened to the street performers, as they relied on the police’s investigation.

Andro and Nurdin said the Rp 36 million would not make up for the torture, nightmares and 11 months they spent behind bars.

They said they would continue performing on the streets, from one Metro Mini to another, but vowed to never return to the scene where they found the dying man.

“I don’t want to find a random corpse and get arrested again, street performers like us are easy targets for cops, after all,” he said.
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