Jakarta court junks extradition request for Pinoys in estafa case

Saying the crime of syndicated estafa does not exist under Indonesian law, a Jakarta court junked the extradition request of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and ordered the release of three Filipino businessmen and their Malaysian partner.

In a decision dated July 31, Presiding Judge Prasetyo Ibnu Asmara of the District Court of South Jakarta ordered that Malaysian businessman Vijayeswaran Vijayaratnam and his Filipino partners Tagumpay Pablo Perez Kintanar, Joseph Luis Eleuterio Tomacruz Bismark and Donna Marie Glenn Imson be freed from police detention.

Kintanar, Bismark, and Imson were accused of defrauding another Filipino, Patrick Zuniga of some $625,000. Charges of syndicated estafa were filed against them in the Philippines. They were arrested in Jakarta last May 3 along with Vijayaratnam.

A fifth accused, a German national identified as a Kurt Georg Rooco Rinck, remains at large.

However, the Jakarta court ruled that the request of the Philippines, through the DOJ, for extradition of the respondents was “legally unreasonable and must be turned down.”

“As the request is turned down, the detention of the extradition appellees must be revoked,” the court said, adding that the passports of the appellees would be returned to them.

The Jakarta court stressed that syndicated estafa “is virtually unknown in Indonesian jurisprudence.”

It said that since the extradition agreement between the Philippines and Indonesia adheres to the principle of “dual criminality,” both countries must consider that the action is a crime before any extradition can be granted.

“The accusations against the four executives constitute a civil matter as it developed from a lending and borrowing agreement,” the court noted.

The Jakarta court also explained that a civil case does not qualify for any extradition request, as extradition agreements in general, and between Indonesia and the Philippines in particular, are valid only for crimes committed.

In addition, the court said “it is a premature to state whether a crime has been committed in an investment activity upon simply hearing from the complainants without first hearing from the respondents.”

“The crime indicted has not received any court judgment with permanent legal force,” the Jakarta court said.

Last December, National Bureau of Investigation Director Nestor Mantaring ordered the five suspects placed on the Interpol Red Notice list as there were warrants of arrest issued for them in April 2006 by Judge Bayani Vargas of Branch 219 of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

According to the NBI, the accused face charges of violation of Article 315 (2) (A) (Estafa-Syndicated (Fraud)) of the Revised Penal Code.

In his complaint, Zuniga said that in 1998, the suspects – who were all either directors or officers of a company called Diversified Global Holdings – presented him with a business proposal.

The suspects allegedly told Zuniga that they and their company could make investments for Zuniga with an assured interest return of $10,000 a month for the first six months.

Zuniga was allegedly enticed to invest $50,625. However, the suspects supposedly pocketed the money and instead of earning money from his investment, the complainant allegedly suffered losses of $625,000.