how's this for indonesian justice?

Cop this, Corby lynchers.


Light murder term dashes reform hopes
Sian Powell, Jakarta correspondent - The Australian
June 17, 2005

WHEN the judges in Jakarta's Central District Court yesterday convicted the rich playboy Adiguna Sutowo of murder and illegal weapons possession, and then sentenced him to a mere seven years in prison, disappointment spread rapidly across the city.

Long heralded as a marker of Indonesian judicial reform, the case has attracted huge amounts of attention and it prompted high hopes that justice would be served.

Few of Indonesia's very rich spend long behind bars - the result of a judicial system known to be riddled with corruption.

Sutowo, the 47-year-old scion of an extremely wealthy clan, used an unlicensed pistol to fatally shoot a waiter in a nightclub in Jakarta's Hilton Hotel (of which he owns a stake) on New Year's Eve.

The waiter, a poor university student called Yohannes "Rudy" Natong, had refused to put Sutowo's drinks on a debit card.

The businessman has continually denied any wrong-doing, despite the testimony of several witnesses who were in the Fluid nightclub at the time. Police said he was drunk and under the influence of crystal methamphetamines and cocaine at the time.

Sutowo's late father, Ibnu Sutowo, was the chief of Indonesia's giant oil and gas company Pertamina, and the family still wields enormous influence in Indonesia.

In a judgment that ranged across the Christian and Islamic religions, and included references to ancient Chinese poems, the judges said Sutowo was convincingly proved guilty of murder, but they took into account his youth, the fact that he was a public figure and had never been previously convicted, and the fact that the murdered man's family had forgiven him.

Sutowo's lawyers immediately declared they would appeal against the sentence, but the prosecution team, which had earlier recommended a sentence of life in prison, said no decision had been made.

"We will look over this verdict carefully," said chief prosecutor Andi Herman.

"I cannot say that I am disappointed. But this is far from what we asked for."