Jakarta. Otto Hasibuan, chairman of the Indonesian Bar Association (Peradi), has offered free legal services to one of the eight convicts in the 2016 murders of Vina Dewi Arsita and her boyfriend Muhammad Rizky Rudiana.

Otto said he might file a judicial review with the Supreme Court to challenge the verdict, citing inconsistencies between investigation findings and the prosecutors' indictment.

The legal assistance will be provided by Peradi as an institution, following a visit from the parents of the convict, Sudirman, on Friday. 

Sudirman is currently serving a life sentence along with six other convicts in the murder case, while one convict has been released after serving half of his eight-year sentence. The ninth suspect was arrested last month after evading capture for nearly eight years.

“We will provide legal assistance for Sudirman free of charge, but he himself must apply for it,” Otto said after meeting with Sudirman’s family members at Peradi Tower in East Jakarta. 

He added that the immediate concern is to determine Sudirman's current place of incarceration to issue his assignment letter. “We will check whether he is in the penitentiary or somewhere else,” Otto said.

Otto admitted that he had only briefly reviewed the verdict against Sudirman and the other convicts but suggested there were numerous irregularities in the case's handling. 

For instance, both the prosecutors’ indictment and the judges’ verdict identified 11 murderers, but the police recently stated that there were only nine suspects. 

"If the other two suspects were non-existent, so were the rest of them," Otto argued. 

Additionally, there were discrepancies between the autopsy results and the statements in the indictment and verdict. 

"The autopsy results determine that both victims sustained traumas, but the indictment states they suffered injuries from sharp weapons like a samurai sword. We need to review these inconsistencies before filing a judicial review," Otto explained.

Police reported that Vina and Rizky were murdered by 11 members of a motorcycle gang and that Vina was raped before her death on August 27, 2016, in the West Java town of Cirebon. 

Their bodies were discovered on an elevated road in the town the following day. The case resurfaced after the eight convicts retracted their police statements, claiming they confessed to the murders under duress.

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