Jakarta – The trial of the case of insulting the president involving Aberson Marle Sihaloho, was coloured by a walk out by the accused and his lawyer Luhut MP Pangaribuan.

In the South Central Jakarta court yesterday, the court showed a video recording of an Aberson speech at the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) Headquarters in Central Jakarta on July 13, 1996.

In the previous hearing Pangaribuan had already threatened they would walk out if the next session continued to show the video recording. The reason, material evidence of a video cassette is illegal, because at the time it was taken permission was not asked of those who were being taped.

One of the panel of judges, judge Sjoffinan Soemantri disagreed and was of the opinion that taking the pictures was legal, just as it is normal for a reporter to take pictures in court and doesn't need permission.

In a number of earlier hearings, Aberson has stated that what was said by him in the speech was not the same as the accused by the prosecutor YW Mere, but perhaps it did resemble it. The position of the accused and the defence lawyer, obviously had not changed in yesterdays hearing. Because of this, when the video was shown yesterday, they decided to leave the court room after several minutes. "Allow us to leave the court room while the video is being shown, because we do not want to out thinking contaminated by a video tape which is illegal and after that we will return to the court room", said Luhut. Judge Soebardi gave them permission to leave.

In the beginning, the video showing as material evidence, was attended by scores of visitors. But in the end the showing was deserted by the visitors one by one.

The video recording which was shown for more than one hour showed Aberson giving a speech on the issue of the state budget at the pro-Megawati PDI free speech forum witnessed by scores of Megawati supporters.

[Slightly abridged translation from Media Indonesia - James Balowski]