Tommy Suharto, the eldest son of a former Indonesian President, was released from jail today having served only part of a very lenient jail term after being found guilty of organising the successful murder of a Supreme Court Judge.
The Suharto trial and early prison release casts some doubt over the integrity of the Indonesian justice system.
A reader of this blog, Richard Ness, is currently on trial in Indonesia for a crime that never happened.
I hope he gets a fair trial.
But it doesn’t bode well when an Indonesian newspaper publishes an article with the heading ‘Put Ness in Jail’ explaining that the Attorney General’s office is already convinced Ness is guilty and that the public prosecutors can expect promotions.
Blogger Declan Butler has followed and reported on the trial of Bulgarian aid workers in prison in Libya and how the local justice system has refused to accept evidence showing the foreigners to be innocent. In a recent blog post Butler suggests their best hope is for the international community to maintain an interest in the trial.
Richard’s son Eric has a blog dedicated to his father’s trial at www.richardness.org.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Obviously Jen has been over to Indonesia and conducted her own thorough and completely autonmous investigation.
I’m sure she wouldn’t be delivering definitive verdicts based on what she has read on the internet. Or in other words, conducting a “trial by blog”.
Steve, you have a valid point, but speaking from experience I don’t think there is any such thing as a fair trial in Indonesia.
Well things will get better now, Perth Zoo has sent over a Orangutan to be released to the wild, who knows with a bit of training it will become a judge or a general.