Haris Azhar Says Death Penalty Claims Must Be Canceled When Law Enforcement Institutions Are Still Transactional And Receive Orders

Illustration. (Photo: Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The president of PT Trada Alam Minera Tbk (TRAM), Heru Hidayat, was demanded by the public prosecutor to be sentenced to death for allegedly committing corruption in the PT Asabri case that cost the state Rp22.7 trillion.

"Demanding that the panel of judges examining and adjudicating this case can decide that the defendant has been proven legally and convincingly according to law guilty of committing a criminal act of corruption with joint weighting and the crime of money laundering," said the prosecutor at the Jakarta Corruption Court, Monday 6 December.

"Sentencing Heru Hidayat with the death penalty," the prosecutor continued. Prosecutors said Heru Hidayat had enriched himself and two other former President Director of Asabri.

Responding to this, human rights activist and legal practitioner Haris Azhar said that the demand for the death penalty should not be applied, especially in the midst of transactional law enforcement institutions.

He said that in studies by legal and human rights experts, one of the factors behind the prohibition of the death penalty is because this form of punishment is often used for repression and is used to frighten people accused of crimes, in this case corruption.

"This is a psychological game. While we know that the quality of the work of law enforcement institutions and their apparatus is still a lot of negative gaps. Moreover, the calculation of state losses carried out by the BPK is suspected not to be carried out independently and carefully. Then where lies the sense of justice?" said Haris Azhar in his statement, Tuesday, December 7.

For this reason, according to him, the implementation of the death penalty cannot be applied when an institution, policy (punishment) and the implementation of its work are still bad, corrupt, can be 'bought' or receive orders from certain parties. One of them is the case of the former Pinangki prosecutor, who was charged with three charges for accepting bribes from the Djoko Tjandra case.

Meanwhile, Heru Hidayat's lawyer, Kresna Hutauruk, said that the death penalty could not be applied in the Asabri case. Because according to him the prosecutor did not include articles related to the death penalty.

"For the Asabri case, Mr. Heru Hidayat, it is clear that the death penalty cannot be applied. In the Corruption Law, the death penalty is regulated in article 2 paragraph (2), where in the indictment against Mr. Heru Hidayat, the prosecutor did not include that article in the indictment," Krishna told reporters.

So, according to him, how is it possible to apply the death penalty when the prosecutor's indictment does not include that article. In addition, Kresna said that the application of the death penalty in Article 2 paragraph (2) of the Anti-Corruption Law contains several provisions.

"If the experts also see that in Article 2 paragraph (2) of the Anti-Corruption Law and its explanations, certain conditions referred to in applying the death penalty are when a crime is committed when the country is in a disaster, monetary crisis, and repetition. While the Asabri case is not included in the these qualifications. It should be noted, Mr. Heru is also not a recidivist who repeats his crime, "he said.

It is known that in the Asabri case, there were 8 defendants, namely the former President Director of Asabri, Major General Purn Adam Rahmat Damiri, Lieutenant General Retired Sonny Widjaja as President Director of PT Asabri for the 2016-2020 period, Bachtiar Effendi as Head of the Finance and Investment Division of PT Asabri for the 2012-2015 period.

Then there was Hari Setianto as Director of Investment and Finance of PT Asabri for the period 2013-2019, Lukman Purnomosidi as President Director of PT Prima Network, Heru Hidayat as President of PT Trada Alam Minera, and Jimmy Sutopo as Director of PT Jakarta Issuer Investor Relations.

One other defendant is Benny Tjokrosaputro as Commissioner of PT Hanson International Tbk. However, Benny's case has not yet reached the reading of the demands and is still at the stage of examining witnesses, so it has not yet reached the process of reading the demands.