TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
More than 100 lawyers ready to defend Kontras leader
Change Size
All ready -- Indonesian Advocates Association (Peradi) chairman Luhut Pangaribuan (left) and Haris Azhar (right), the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), show a signed document on Monday, through which the latter officially asked Peradi to provide him with legal assistance in a defamation case brought by the National Police, Indonesian Military and the National Narcotics Agency.
(thejakartapost.com/Winda Ayu Charmila)
O
ver 150 lawyers from across the country have expressed their willingness to provide legal assistance to human rights activist Haris Azhar, who is currently facing a defamation charges filed by the National Police, Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Narcotics Agency (BNN).
“Haris has officially requested us to give him legal assistance and we are ready to help as he is one of us,” Indonesian Advocates Association (Peradi) chairman Luhut Pangaribuan told a press conference on Monday.
Luhut further said the three state institutions implicated in Haris’ statement, about the alleged involvement of their senior officials in executed convict Freddy Budiman’s international drug network, should have engaged in introspection instead of reporting him to the police.
Haris, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), was reported to the police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) on Aug. 2 for allegedly defaming the three institutions through an article he posted on social media.
In the statement, which was based on Freddy’s testimony to him in 2014, Haris claimed that police, TNI and BNN officials were involved in the drug lord’s business. Freddy claimed he had over the years paid around Rp 450 billion (US$34.42 million) to BNN and Rp 90 billion to top officials in the National Police.
The testimony was released the day before Freddy was executed on Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap, Central Java, on July 29.
National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar previously said Haris had violated the 2008 Electronic Information and Transaction (ITE) Law by circulating defamatory information on the internet. (wnd/ebf)
