Three soldiers suspected of having tortured and killed a civilian have been arrested

2023-08-29 19:38:55

The case has aroused great emotion in the Southeast Asian country. The Indonesian army announced on Tuesday that it had arrested three soldiers suspected of having kidnapped, tortured and killed a civilian to extort money from him. The victim was tortured to death. According to media reports, his body was found in a river in the city of Karawang in West Java province. Relatives identified him as Imam Masykur, 25.

According to his family, soldiers tried to extort 50 million Indonesian rupiah ($3,278) from him before killing him. “This case involved three soldiers from the Presidential Security Regiment and the regular army,” army spokesman Brigadier-General Hamim Tohari told reporters on Tuesday.

An opaque military justice system

“What is certain is that it started with a kidnapping, extortion [d’argent] and an assault that turned out to be deadly,” he added. Human rights organizations have long denounced military abuses against civilians and the military’s failure to reform its opaque military justice system.

The case shocked the country and was on the air on Tuesday on the main television channels. According to the army spokesman, the Jakarta police were informed on August 14 of the case which was passed on to the military police when the three soldiers became suspects. As a result, the latter will face a trial before a military tribunal.

The “principles of fair justice”

According to human rights NGOs, the trial should be held in criminal court because the victim was a civilian. “Security personnel suspected of involvement in torture and other inhumane acts should not only face internal sanctions, but also criminal proceedings in a public court in accordance with the principles of fair justice,” said Amnesty International’s director for Indonesia Usman Hamid.

According to NGOs, military courts, whose hearings are held behind closed doors, have been used to shield perpetrators of human rights violations from transparent and public judicial proceedings.