Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – A Banda Aceh military court on Wednesday sentenced Capt. T. Syuib Mahmud to three months jail for assaulting activist Farid Faqih, who is currently in custody for allegedly stealing donated items destined for tsunami victims in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

Presiding judge Maj. Hulwani found Syuib guilty as charged. The sentence was a month less than that requested by the military prosecutor.

The defendant, accompanied by his three lawyers Capt. Sutisna, Capt. Irham and First Lt. Rizki Guntur Hidayatsyah, said he would appeal the decision. Syuib told journalists that the decision was unfair since he was just trying to look after aid donations that were the property of the state.

The incident happened when the relief materials from the military officers' wives association, Dharma Pertiwi, arrived by plane at the Iskandar Muda Air Base in the Blang Bintang area just outside of Banda Aceh. Capt. Syuib, a military medical officer, logged in and received the donations.

However, he claims that when he got back from reporting the aid's arrival to the Indonesian military operational command on the base, the containers were gone. Syuib said that he eventually discovered that the supplies had been loaded onto two trucks and then taken to a warehouse.

Syuib said that he was outraged, claiming that Farid, who is in Aceh along with other NGO activists, working in partnership with the UN's World Food Program, was responsible for taking the aid away. After an argument, Farid was severely beaten.

"I don't accept three months [jail], not even a month. What I did was protecting state property that was stolen by other people," he said.

Hulwani, with two other judges Maj. Marwan Suhandi and Maj. Suryadi Samsir, said in their decision that the defendant intentionally assaulted Farid.

Farid is the coordinator of Government Watch (GOWA), a non-governmental organization that acts as an anticorruption watchdog, and was named a suspect in the matter of the missing aid.