The East Jakarta District Court handed down on Tuesday the death penalty to two men and a life sentence to another after they were found guilty of multiple counts of murder in a robbery that resulted in the deaths of six people last year.

The verdict ended a months-long trial in a case in which a group of four robbers broke into a house in an affluent neighborhood in East Jakarta while the owner, Dodi Triono, his daughters and their friend and his employees were inside the premises.

Ridwan Sitorus alias Ius Pane, and Erwin Situmorang alias Ucok, who had threatened the victims and ushered them into a bathroom before burglarizing the house, received the death penalty, while Alfin Bernius Sinaga, the driver, was sentenced to life in prison.

“The defendants have been found guilty of premeditated murder. Therefore, Ridwan Sitorus and Erwin Situmorang are sentenced to death, while Alfin Sinaga is sentenced to life imprisonment,” presiding judge Gede Ariawan said while delivering the verdict.

The panel of judges granted the demands of a team of prosecutors that had charged the defendants under articles 340 and 55 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) on premeditated murder and demanded the ultimate punishment for two of the three defendants.

The day after Christmas last year, the robbers, led by Ramlan Butar Butar, broke into Dodi’s house and threatened the 11 people inside the house, including the owner, while brandishing airsoft guns, machetes and
sickles.

Although the weapons were not used to kill the victims, they were used to force the victims to enter a 2.25 square meter bathroom without ventilation, which was then locked.

This act caused six people to die from suffocation namely Dodi, 59, his two daughters Diona Andika Andra Putri, 16, and Dianita Gemma Dzalfayla, 9, Dianita’s friend Amalia Calista, 9, and Dodi’s drivers Yanto and Tasrok.

Five people survived the incident namely Dodi’s second daughter Zanette Kalila, 13, and his domestic helpers Emi, Santi, Fitriani and Windy.

“We considered their plans and the tools they used that caused the deaths of the victims. That is why we consider this crime to be an act of premeditated murder deserving of the maximum punishment,” Zulkipli, one of the prosecutors, told reporters at the East Jakarta Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday.

He also said another reason the defendants deserved the maximum punishment was because they had committed repeated armed robberies and displayed a habit of gathering their victims into a single room.

Police found Ramlan and shot him dead just days after the robbery took place while his three accomplices were arrested.

The three defendants and their lawyers have decided to file an appeal to the verdict in objection to the charge of premeditated murder.

“The defendants did not use the weapons to kill the victims. They were used merely to threaten them so they could rob the house without being caught,” Amudi Sidabutar, one of the lawyers, said.

The lawyers have seven days to prepare to lodge the appeal.

Daniel Awigra, a project manager of the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), said his group condemned the crime because the murders had caused the victims’ families to suffer, and thus the defendants deserved a very harsh punishment.

However, he said that to sentence the defendants to death was equal with the act of killing itself, and could not erase the victims’ suffering.

“The defendants have the right to be free from the death penalty,” he told The Jakarta Post. (ecn)

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