Unspun

Why is Radityo Djadjoeri, the owner and administrator of Mediacare, the Yahoo mailing list for journalists and communicators, and also the blog, taking an inordinate interest in the Billy Sindoro case?

On Tuesday 16 December he posted a message entitled Talkshow: Kasus hukum yang membelit bisnis TV berbayar (Talkshow: The legal case that’s inimical to Pay TV, but you have to be a member to access the mailing list though) in which he said he (kami) would like to organize an on-air and off-air talkshow on the court case that is inimical to pay TV in Indonesia.

He then called for suggestions from the readers on topics that could be discussed, as well as suggestions for possible speakers, in such a talkshow.

And yesterday, 18 December, Radityo took issue with Koran Tempo, again in another posting in  Mediacare. He objcted to three points in Koran Tempo’s coverage of the Anti-Corruption Court’s hearing of the Billy Sindoro case headlined KPPU bribecase implicates Golkar politician.

In this posting Radityo makes three points: 1. That Billy Sindoro is no longer the President Director of PT First Media, the Lippo-controlled company that owns PT Direct Vision (and also no longer a member of the Board of Commissioners of Bank Lippo), 2) Billy was not caught red-handed passing the black bag containing the bribe money to Iqbal and 3)Billy did not comment on the KPK witness’s explanation.

The first two points are consistent with the strategy adopted by Billy’s defense lawyer, Humphrey Djemat. The strategy is to portray Billy as acting on his own rather than on behalf of someone else, even though it makes no sense for Billy to act as an individual to protect the interests of the group that he no longer belongs to.

The point about Billy not being caught red-handed passing the black bag of money to Iqbal is also consistent with Humphrey’s defence strategy, which is to imply that if the KPK does not really have solid evidence of the actual transaction taking place, then it has failed to prove that a crime has taken place. Video shots by the KPK, which was carried by Okezone, show Billy and Iqbal going into a lift with Billy carrying the bag. The next shots are of Billy coming out of the lift without the bag. Another shot is of Iqbal with the bag.

The third point is interesting because in it Radityo admits that he had sat in Billy’s trial from morning to afternoon. Its an inordinate amount of time to spend in court unless there is some spcial interest involved.

In his blog Radityo has also begun posting frequently and intensively on the Billy Sindoro case since December 8 when before postings were infrequent and showed little interest in matters surrounding the KPPU case.

So why is Radityo so interested in the case?many journalists have become curious. Perhaps Pak Radityo would care to drop by this blog and let us all know?

(Unspun’s disclosure: see the about page)