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'I am haunted': Indonesia death row prisoners allege they were tortured to confess
Sydney Morning Herald - May 11, 2016
In 2007, Lim, a Malaysian, was working as a driver for another Malaysian man when Indonesian police found 12,000 ecstasy tablets in his boss's car.
Lim says he was apprehended at gunpoint by police from the National Narcotics Agency outside his Taman Anggrek apartment in West Jakarta. "They asked me to say where the (ecstasy) factory and products are, when I am only the driver – how can I know?"
He says he was dragged behind a speedboat in Ancol in North Jakarta and lost the tops of his fingers after a steel table leg was slammed onto them – "I stitch it myself, I never go to the clinic or hospital" – and he was struck in the collarbone with a metal bar.
"I said: 'I don't know, I'm Malaysian.' They just beat me." Lim says he was forced to "confess" that a man named Christian was his boss.
In 2008, Christian, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, was sentenced to death for importing a psychotropic substance. He now faces death by firing squad, with a further round of executions for drug offenders imminent in Indonesia.
But on Tuesday, Lim told the West Jakarta District Court he did not know Christian at the time of his arrest. "I have spent 8-and-a-half years in jail and I have difficulty sleeping because I know I testified wrongly against Christian," says Lim, who was also sentenced to death.
"I said something because I was forced... because I was tortured, my fingers cut off. I feel guilty, I am haunted by the feeling that I made an innocent man have a difficult life."
Christian, who sold imported flour, was parking his car on a Jakarta street on November 25, 2007, when police pointed a pistol at his head and detained him without a warrant.
He was allegedly handcuffed, blindfolded and beaten. Photographs shown in court, taken the day after he was detained in November 2007, show deep bruises on his abdomen and arms. He was not arrested at the crime scene and no urine test was conducted, something required in drug-related cases.
Christian's lawyer, Azas Tigor Nainggolan, who works for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Indonesia, says his client was wrongfully convicted on false evidence and had an unfair trial.
He has launched action in the West Jakarta District Court to request a judicial review of Christian's case. "Our judicial system is still unfair and corrupt, so we should not apply the death sentence," Mr Tigor says.
From September 2010 to December 2011 the National Human Rights Commission of Indonesia (Komnas HAM) monitored prisoners on death row in jails throughout Indonesia.
Commissioner Roichatul Aswidah said the investigation uncovered many instances of torture. "Our monitoring found cases of wrongful arrest, Christian's case in particular," she told the court.
"He was wrongfully arrested and tortured. Lim was also tortured. Death sentences cannot be issued in cases in which torture is part of the legal process."
Meanwhile, the Bishops' Conference of Indonesia has asked the government to re-examine 300 death penalty convictions it believes were the result of unfair trials.
But the drums are beating, with the latest round of executions expected this month. West Java police are now saying 15 drug offenders will be executed in the latest round. Mr Tigor admits he is "very worried".
Christian says his wife and daughters have never stopped suffering. "It is a lie that Indonesia is based on justice and law," he says. "There is no justice in Indonesia." (With Karuni Rompies)
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