Makassar, Jubi – Human rights lawyers from the Coalition for Law and Human Rights Enforcement of Papua says to make any efforts to free the seven political prisoners subject to treason while participating in a rally against racism in Jayapura City in August 2019.
Emanuel Gobay for the coalition said he and his colleagues as the legal councillor team of the defendants would do everything for their clients.
In the trials respectively conducted on 2 June and 5 June, the public prosecutor charged the defendants with five to seventeen years in prison. The public prosecutor charged Irwanus Uropmabin with five years sentence, Buchtar Tabuni 17 years, Steven Itlay 15 years, Agus Kossay 15 years, Alexander Gobay 10 years, Fery Kombo 10 years, and Hengki Hilapok 5 years.
Gobay said the public prosecutor’s indictment was not the end of the trial. The legal counsel team will file a defence against it.
“We will refute the prosecutor’s indictment by filing a defence. If the public prosecutor replies to our defence with a written plea (replik), we will file our written plea (duplik) against it. Afterwards, the panel of judges can make a decision,” said Gobay by phone on Friday (5/6/2020).
Gobay further said if the panel of judges is not objective in taking a decision, the legal counsel team will file an appeal to the High Court. If the High Court denies their appeal and instead upholds the judge’s decision, they will take the case to the Supreme Court.
“If later the Supreme Court is still not objective against the defendants, we will file a judicial review. We will take all mechanisms of legal actions that are guaranteed by our law to ensure the fulfilment of the legal rights over the defendants. Even if we can file a judicial review against the treason article, we’ll do,” he said. (*)
Reporter: Arjuna Pademme
Editor: Pipit Maizier