Welcome Guest   |  Login   |   Signup
JG Logo
Sat, May 26, 2012
Archive Search

Three Face Prison Sentences Over Wood Dispute
Hangga Brata | January 18, 2012

Share This Page
1
10
0
1
Share with google+ :


Post a comment
Please login to post comment

Comments

jusdogin
11:23pm Jan 18, 2012

good try by the police


  • Previous
  • 1
  • Next

Boyolali, Central Java. Two elderly men are facing prosecution for collecting a bundle of wood, and another for trying to stop them - but it could all have been avoided if they’d agreed to compromise.

Kliwondo (71) and Sangidi (65) are facing a possible prison sentence over the wood, taken from communal land belonging to the village of Jembangan in Ngemplak subdistrict.

But Kliwondo explained that as far as he’s concerned, he is not a thief. In 1993, he said, he was asked to look after a tract of land belonging to a fellow villager.

He planted some of it with teak seedlings and looked after the land until the early 2000s, when the village bought the land. The agreement changed, and he was required to pay Rp 400,000 ($44,400) to rent the land.

“At that time I was only told by the village administration that I must pay rent if I wished to continue to manage the piece of land,” Kliwondo said.

“When the lease was over in 2007, there was a letter issued allowing me to continue looking after the land. So I thought it would be no problem to collect a little timber from the trees I’d planted,” he explained from the prosecutor’s office in Boyolali.

A problem arose, however, when the village appointed a caretaker for a new cemetery it was building on the land.

“Essentially it was decided that I wasn’t managing the land any more, but no-one told me, even though I had planted the trees that grew there.”

Then one day in July 2011, Kliwondo sent his friend Sangidi to collect wood from the land. Sangidi returned to report that there was someone prohibiting him from doing so, namely Parsam (60).

Hearing the news, Kliwondo approached Parsam for an explanation. But the two could not see eye to eye, and began a scuffle which ended with Parsam landing a knockout blow which sent Kliwondo to hospital for two days.

The police became involved, but rather than processing the two as suspects, the Ngemplak police mediated, attempting to have the two reach an agreement which could avoid the courts.

Unfortunately, the elderly villagers were too stubborn to take the opportunity offered, and each reported the other to the police, demanding prosecution.

Boyolali police spokeswoman Sriharna said it was now out of their hands. “In the case of the punching, Parsam has come before a judge and received a month’s prison sentence. As for the theft charges, they will soon come before the court.”