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Jakarta judges to handle Maluku separatist's trial
Jakarta Post, May 8, 2001
JAKARTA (Agencies): A team of Indonesian judges will head to the riot-torn province of Maluku to handle the trial of a separatist leader accused of illegally flying his group's flag, a report said Tuesday.
The head of the Ambon district court in Maluku, Theophilus Pujiwahono, told the state Antara news agency he had been informed by the justice ministry that judges would be sent to handle the case of Alex Manuputty.
Alex, the executive chairman of the Front for the Sovereignty of Maluku (FKM), was arrested late last month for presiding over a ceremony to hoist the South Maluku Republic Flag at his home in Ambon.
The provincial capital, which has been ravaged by violence between Muslims and Christians since January 1999, has only two judges left, including Pujiwahono. The others have already fled Maluku.
The dispatch of the judges was requested by Maluku Governor Saleh Latuconsina, Pujiwahono said. But the identity of the judges and the dates of their visit to Ambon were not known yet.
Jakarta has announced that it will also dispatch seven judges to assist the remaining judges in Ambon in their regular duties.
Alex had asked for his trial to be handled by an international court, but there was no prospect of this, Pujiwahono said.
The flag, raised in Alex's front garden, was hoisted between the Indonesian flag and that of the United Nations. It flew only briefly before it was hauled down by police.
The flag-raising ceremony was attended by more than 100 FKM supporters and included a reading of the April 25, 1950 proclamation of the South Maluku Republic.
The separatist movement was banned by Indonesia's first president Sukarno and its followers were allowed to either remain in the country or leave for the Netherlands, the former colonial power.
The movement has reappeared in Ambon following the communal unrest, which has claimed about 8,000 lives and driven up to half a million people from their homes over the past two years.(*)
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