Jakarta (ANTARA) – The East Jakarta District Court sentenced Ummi Hospital President Director Andi Tatat to one year in prison on Thursday over Habib Rizieq Shihab’s swab testing case.
He, however, rejected the verdict of the court’s judiciary panel and filed an appeal to the higher court against it.
The panel of judges, headed by Khadwanto, who read out the verdict during a live-streamed court hearing, disclosed that Tatat was found guilty of misinforming about Shihab’s health condition.
Judge Khadwanto handed Tatat the prison term in connection with the Bogor City-based Ummi Hospital’s swab testing case for violating Article 14 (1) of Law No.1 of 1946 on misinformation.
Khadwanto noted that the judges awarded him a lighter punishment than the prosecutors demanded, as he was not found to have committed crimes in the past, and he had a family to care for.
Tatat’s profession, as a medical doctor, which is highly required during this pandemic situation, was also taking into account during the judges’ verdict, Khadwanto revealed. The convict, however, was awarded the punishment because his misinformation on Shihab’s health condition had stirred anxiety in the community due to his father-in-law’s positive swab test result.
In response to the panel of judges’ ruling, Tatat said he had appealed to the higher court against the guilty verdict.
During the court hearing, the judiciary panel also sentenced Indonesia’s esteemed ulema and founder of the now-defunct Islam Defenders Front (FPI) Habib Rizieq Shihab and his son-in-law, Habib Hanif Alatas, to four years and one year in prison respectively.
Both Shihab and Alatas also rejected the court’s verdict and appealed to the higher court against it.
One of Shihab’s lawyers, Sugito Atmo Prawiro, also appealed to a higher court against the verdict, although the prison term handed out to his client was lighter than the six-year imprisonment demanded by the prosecutors.
On May 27, 2021, the same district court had also sentenced Shihab to eight months in prison and imposed a fine of Rp20 million on him over breaching the country’s health quarantine law in connection with several crowd-drawing events in Jakarta and Megamendung, West Java, last year.
Owing to the case of alleged breach of the government’s health protocols during a series of crowd-gathering events at his home and the FPI headquarters in Petamburan, Central Jakarta, in November 2020, Shihab was detained on December 12, 2020.
Source: Antara News