Via Facsimile
Mr. Marzuki Darusman
Attorney General
Republic of Indonesia
Dear Pak Marzuki,
We are concerned that efforts to try suspects in the RATA killings in the newly established human rights court are falling afoul of a legal technicality, and we believe that you as Attorney General may have the power to ensure that this technicality is overcome. But we are also concerned that your office is presenting the case as a stark choice between keeping the suspects in detention and prosecuting them in a court that lacks credibility, or releasing them pending investigation under the new human rights legislation. We would very much appreciate clarification as to why the suspects cannot be kept in detention while the latter option is explored.
As you know, the case involves the December 6, 2000 murder of three humanitarian workers in North Aceh by a group of armed civilians and military officers. The three were volunteers for Rehabilitation Action for Torture Victims in Aceh (RATA), a nongovernmental organization. Eight men, four civilians and four army officers, including the head of intelligence for the regional military command in Aceh, Korem 011, were arrested about ten days after the murders and have been in detention ever since. The case was originally investigated by the provincial police in Aceh as a criminal case of premeditated murder. As such, and because it involved both civilians and soldiers, it would have to be tried by a so-called koneksitas court involving both civilian and military judges.
The only previous experience of Acehnese with a koneksitas court was the Bantaqiah trial last May, which ended with twenty-four guilty verdicts of ordinary soldiers but without any real effort to find, let alone prosecute, the lieutenant colonel in charge of the operation. This means that for the all-important goal of having Acehnese believe that justice can be done by an Indonesian court, the koneksitas option starts out with a major credibility problem.
The alternative was to use the RATA murders as the first case to be tried under legislation passed by the Indonesian parliament on November 23, setting up new human rights courts to try the most severe cases of human rights violations, including genocide and crimes against humanity. The new law gives the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas-HAM) the power to investigate human rights cases, as opposed to the police who are the investigators in ordinary criminal cases.
The provincial police completed their investigation of the RATA case on February 21, 2001 and turned the dossier over to the provincial prosecutor in Banda Aceh. At the time, he said it would be a few months before a koneksitas trial would begin. In the meantime, we understand that the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas-HAM) appealed to you to take the case out of the prosecutor's hands and turn it over to them for investigation as a serious human rights case.
We understand that both you and the police maintain that if the case were turned over to Komnas-HAM, the police would be obliged to release the suspects because there would be no legal ground for their detention. In addition, if they were released, they would almost certainly go into hiding and there would be no guarantee they could ever be found.
Indonesian human rights lawyers say that while there is no precedent for the police turning a trial-ready case over to Komnas-HAM for investigation under the new law, there is no legal reason why the men could not be kept in detention within the time limits set by Indonesian law, since the law gives you powers of detention during the investigation phase. The relationship between human rights courts and the regular courts is going to have to be worked out anyway; you have a chance here to clarify how cases can be transferred from the latter to the former, and in the process, serve the cause of justice.
We can understand why the police would want to retain control of this case. They have been struggling to assert themselves vis-à-vis the army in Aceh, they may be proud of having caught and detained senior army suspects in a high-profile case, and they may be genuinely worried that the men could be released on a legal technicality. Since the human rights courts are not yet functional, despite the law being in place, and since appointment of the courts' judges awaits action by the Supreme Court, they may also believe that prosecution in a flawed koneksitas court is better than long delayed justice in a human rights court.
But there is also deep concern among human rights defenders that if the RATA murders are not tried in a human rights court, not only will there be no true justice for the victims and their families, but there will also be no strong deterrent against future attacks on human rights and humanitarian workers.
We agree that the worst option would be to let the suspects go free; a trial in a koneksitas court would be preferable to no trial at all. The question is whether in fact the choice must come down to that.
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Sidney Jones
Executive Director, Asia Division
Human Rights Watch
