In the wake of the stadium disaster in Indonesia that killed 135, a police officer has now been sentenced to 18 months in prison for negligence.
This was decided by an Indonesian court on Thursday. The man, named Hasdarmawan, worked as the commander of the East Java Police Force mobile brigade unit that used tear gas in the fatal operation.
“The defendant failed to foresee a situation that was actually quite easy to foresee. There was an option not to fire (the tear gas) in response to the violence of the supporters,” said the reasoning of the presiding judge Abu Achmad Sidqi Amsya. The public prosecutor had asked for a prison sentence of three years.
The catastrophe happened at the beginning of October after the league game between Arema FC and Persebaya FC (2:3) in a sold-out stadium with 42,000 spectators. According to an investigation, the excessive use of tear gas by the police is blamed in particular. As a result of riots, there were violent clashes in and around the arena. More than 40 children were among the dead.
Last week the Indonesian court had already sentenced match organizing committee head Abdul Haris and security officer Suko Sutrisno to 18 months and a year in prison respectively. The former director of the company that runs the Indonesian Premier League has also been named as a suspect and is under further investigation.