Outcry over Kiwi's lengthy Jakarta jailing

Rob McNeice

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In the prison wing of Indonesia's National Police Headquarters in Jakarta is a whiteboard listing the names of inmates awaiting trial, followed by the length of time they have spent in custody.

At the top of the list, a western name stands out: Robert James McNeice. More conspicuous is the number of days the New Zealander has been detained: 457.

McNeice, 43, has been held at the facility since August 15 last year, three days after he was arrested by Indonesian police and Interpol officers in Aceh province, where he had developed trade aid coffee projects for three years.

The arrest was at the request of the Australian government, which is seeking his extradition to face two charges of defrauding one of Australia's richest men, Aussie Home Loans boss John Symond, and his nephew, James Symond, of $A270,000 ($339,000) in a deal to buy Swiss watches.

"Swiss watches were purchased with the money, but not the whole amount," said McNeice, during weekly visiting hours at the prison on Friday. He said communication with the Symonds, whom he had known for 15 years, broke down when the dispute arose, but denies he subsequently fled the country; he says he contacted James Symond about a "repayment plan" eight months before his unexpected arrest at a hotel, but never heard back.

Since then, he has spent his "year off" – now stretched to 15 months – in wretched conditions in the police prison, spending weeks sleeping on flattened cardboard in a shared cell, and five months sleeping outside under a shelter, before moving, at the guards' insistence, to a foam mattress in a corridor. "It's a lot better than being outside," he said.

McNeice, who, at 20, left Christchurch for Australia, where he also holds citizenship, shares his overcrowded surroundings with at least 50 inmates, as well as rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes. With only basic Indonesian language skills, he has worked hard to fit in to the prison pecking order.

"When you are the only expat, you can be picked on," he says. Thin, pale and jittery, he has suffered malaria, dengue fever and dysentery, and, say the human rights advocates who have recently championed his case, has deteriorated psychologically during his incarceration.

Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights said earlier this month that McNeice's ongoing detention without trial constituted a probable human rights violation. Commissioner Johny Nelson Simanjuntak told the Sunday Star-Times the legal basis for his detention was unclear, as Indonesian criminal law only allowed detention for two months by police, 50 days by a prosecutor and 90 days by a judge. It was 11 months before McNeice first appeared in court in July, which the judge then deferred to a hearing later that month, as no formal police statement had been taken.

"Why has it taken so long? That's the question we're asking," said Simanjuntak, who has requested clarifications from various government departments with no response.

The Star-Times visited the South Jakarta District Court on Friday with representatives of the commission to seek clarification on McNeice's status. The court said there was no limit on the length of time prisoners awaiting extradition requests could be detained, and confirmed the extradition request had been accepted by the judge in July. The decision to extradite McNeice now rested with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

A spokesman for Yudhoyono said he was not familiar with the case and referred questions to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Teuku Faizasyah had no comment, but was "a bit puzzled" by the case as, typically, foreign embassies would alert the government early on when their citizens where involved in similar situations.

McNeice, who is challenging his detention as unlawful, blames Australia for leaving him at the mercy of the porous Indonesian justice system by not following up on their extradition request.

A spokesman for Australia's attorney-general said McNeice's remand in custody was a matter for Indonesian authorities, and it was inappropriate to comment.

But while McNeice says he wants the charges "to be dealt with as quickly as possible", he has done little to hasten the process, engaging a lawyer only a fortnight ago, and rebuffing offers of consular assistance from New Zealand and Australia.

McNeice says he turned down New Zealand's offer because he "didn't want to be a burden" and thought its services would not be useful; he did the same to Australia last week because he was reluctant to sit down with representatives of the government prosecuting him: "There's going to be a legal argument down the road there, so why would I go into that situation with them?"

Against the advice of the New Zealand and Australian authorities, he did not get legal representation, making much of the legal process unintelligible to him.

"I got a lawyer – briefly – and it was like talking to a post. I don't have the means to afford the top guys." In any event, he says, he thought from initial media reports the extradition process would take only three months. "I thought, `I'm cool with that,' so I waited."

He says he has not stalled the process in any way – he would be powerless to do so – but concedes he resolved to "hold out and wait as long as possible to let the situation come forward", motivated by comments from an Australian police liaison that time served in Jakarta would likely be deducted from a sentence in Australia.

In January, he wrote to Foreign Minister Murray McCully requesting that he be tried in absentia in New South Wales, and allowed to serve any sentence in his current location. Asked why he would prefer to serve time in Indonesia over Australia, McNeice said he had "become accustomed to it". He hoped his "neglect" by Australian authorities might give him flexibility to negotiate.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the New Zealand embassy in Jakarta was monitoring McNeice's case.

This report was filed with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

- © Fairfax NZ News