A condenação de Hércules Marçal

Jakarta. The West Jakarta District Court on May 08 2014 convicted notorious gang boss Hercules Rozario Marshal for a second time in less than a year, handing him a three-year sentence for extortion and money laundering. Prim Haryadi, the presiding judge at the trial, said prosecutors had made a convincing case to prove that Hercules had strong-armed a local businessman into hiring his thugs to provide security for a property development in Kembangan, West Jakarta. “The court thus rules that the defendant must serve a three-year jail sentence,” he said

. “The defendant can accept the verdict or appeal.” The sentence was lighter than the five years sought by prosecutors, but a lawyer for Hercules said his client would appeal against it. Hercules remains free pending the appeals process. He was convicted of forcing Sukanto Tjakra, the director of the property developer Tjakra Multi Strategi, into hiring his gang’s “security services” for a 6.-hectare development in Kembangan. Sukanto and his business partner, Amin Maulana, paid Hercules Rp 400 million as demanded in March 2010. In December 2012, Hercules’s henchmen demanded an additional Rp 250 million. Sukanto said that he would pay in installments, but after paying the first Rp 50 million, reported the matter to the police. Police later revealed that Sukanto and Amin were not the only local businesses who had fallen prey to Hercules’s protection racket. “Others who ran business in that complex were extorted for up to Rp 1.5 billion,” said Adj. Sr. Comr. Hengki Haryadi Hengki, the head of the West Jakarta Police’s general crimes unit, said in December last year as quoted by Tempo.co. Thursday’s ruling is the second in less than a year against the gang boss, who was in July 2013 sentenced to four months in jail by the same court for inciting a riot and damaging property. That case was also linked to a protection racket, with Hercules ordering the riot in retaliation at a police crackdown against his gang for extorting local businesses in the Kembangan area.