Indonesia ready to sentence Thai sea-slave traffickers

Fishing boats carrying recently rescued foreign fishermen prepare to dock at a port in Tual, Indonesia on April 4 last year. (AP Photo)

WRITER: ASSOCIATED PRESS-27 Feb 2016

TUAL, INDONESIA — Indonesian prosecutors are seeking up to four and a half years in jail for five Thais and three Indonesians accused of human trafficking in connection with slavery in the seafood industry.

The suspects were arrested in the remote island village of Benjina in May last year after the slavery was revealed by The Associated Press in a report two months earlier.

The victims — 13 fishermen from Myanmar who testified under protection of Indonesia's Witness and Victim Protection Agency — told the court that they had been tortured, forced to work up to 24 hours a day, and were not paid. They also said they were locked up in a prison-like cell in the fishing company's compound.

In their sentencing demand on Friday, prosecutors sought four and a half years in jail for Thai captain Youngyut Nitiwongchaeron and four countrymen — Boonsom Jaika, Surachai Maneephong, Hatsaphon Phaetjakreng and Somchit Korraneesuk — as well as Indonesian Hermanwir Martino.

They want two other Indonesians, Yopi Hanorsian and Muklis Ohoitenan, jailed for three and a half years.

They also demanded all the eight defendants, tried by a three-judge panel led by Edy Toto Purba, to pay a fine of 240 million rupiah, or 640,000 baht, each or to serve three more months in jail.

Indonesian police have found that hundreds of foreign fishermen were recruited in Thailand and brought to Indonesia using fake immigration papers and seamen's books and were subjected to brutal labour abuses.

More than 2,000 men from Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos have been rescued and sent home this year from brutal conditions at sea as a result of an Associated Press investigation into seafood brought to the United States from the slave island. Some had been held captive more than a decade after being trafficked onto Thai trawlers.

Prosecutors demanded that the five Thais pay compensation ranging from 50 million to 350 million rupiah (133,000 to 930,000 baht) to the 13 victims who testified at the trials that began on Nov 16 at the district court in Tual, a municipality in southeastern Maluku province.

State prosecutors have charged the defendants with violating a law against people-smuggling that carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine as high as US$46,000.

In the investigation, at least five fishing boats used by the suspects for human trafficking and slavery-like practices were confiscated, along with dozens of fake passports and seamen books. Also, a multi-million-dollar Thai-Indonesian fishing business has been shut down.

All the defendants were employees at Pusaka Benjina Resources, one of the largest fishing businesses in eastern Indonesia.

The hearing will resume on Friday, when defendants and defence lawyers will submit their responses to the sentencing demands.