The Presence Of The Defendant In Court Should Not Light The Sentence

The defendant Harvey Moeis (right) and his wife Sandra Dewi attended a follow-up hearing in the alleged corruption case of tin trading system (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The defendant's polite attitude in the trial did not deserve to be used as an excuse to lighten the criminal sentence. This was said by the Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Jember (Unej), Prof. Arief Amrullah.

Prof. Arief said this was in response to considerations that eased the sentence for the defendant Harvey Moeis in the corruption case of managing tin commodity trading in the mining business permit (IUP) area of PT Timah Tbk. in the 2015 '2022 period.

"Anyone must be polite in court. Just try, who is not polite when dealing with a judge?" said Prof. Arief during an interview in Jakarta, as quoted by ANTARA.

According to him, the possibility of a defendant being disrespectful at trial is very small.

"All the defendants must be dressed neatly. It is impossible for anyone to come in compact clothes in the courtroom," he said.

He also added that almost none of the defendants took actions such as rampaging or saying rudely in front of the panel of judges.

"It is impossible at trial that the defendant spoke inappropriately. Therefore, decency should not be used as a mitigating factor. An assessment should focus on the criminology aspect, what is the motive behind the crime," explained Prof. Arief.

In this case, the Panel of Judges at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday (23/12) sentenced Harvey Moeis to 6 years and 6 months in prison.

In its decision, the Panel of Judges considered a number of aggravating and mitigating factors. The weighting factor is the corruption crime that Harvey committed when the government was aggressively eradicating corruption.

"Meanwhile, the mitigating thing is that the defendant was polite during the trial, had family responsibilities, and had never been sentenced to a criminal sentence before," explained Chief Judge Eko Aryanto.