Indonesia Drops Case Against Divers After Escape Is Discovered

A day after Indonesian authorities discovered that four scuba divers accused of trespassing had escaped, an Indonesian court on Thursday dismissed charges against the group.

Presiding Judge Munziri Syarkawish rejected the prosecution charges and upheld objections by the defense counsel that they constituted a defamation of the accused, who have been held for more than two months.

Prosecutor Halius Hosen said he would consider appealing the verdict, and defense lawyer Gunawan Suryoputro said it could take a week for the passports of the accused to be returned even if there is no appeal.

“We won the first round. We’ll have to wait to see if it’s the last,” said Peter Howes, 30, a former oil rig worker from Perth, Australia, who was leader of the group of six Americans, three Australians and a Briton.

Empty Seats in Courthouse

There were four empty seats in the courthouse. Four of the Californians, Patrick Gibson of Van Nuys, James Vorus of Santa Monica, Clifton Craft of Whittier and Daniel Commerford of Orange, escaped Indonesian custody last weekend.

Three of them stole a fishing boat and crossed to Singapore, where they were given temporary travel documents to fly home. The whereabouts of Vorus are still uncertain, members of the group said.

Commerford said Thursday that the Indonesian authorities “didn’t have any evidence, they never did. What happened is they saw the opportunity for an extortion move on a group of foreigners they felt they could get money from.”

Commerford, Craft and Gibson are members of the California Wreck Divers Club, some of whose members face charges of defacing two historically significant shipwrecks, the Golden Horn in Santa Barbara County and the Winfield Scott in Ventura County. Craft faces such a charge stemming from a November, 1987, dive off Anacapa Island to explore the Winfield Scott, a Gold Rush-era steamship that ran aground in 1853.

But Commerford said there is a big difference between exploring wrecks for an old pipe or porthole cover and hunting for sunken gold or other treasure, which the Indonesian government contended they were doing.

“Some people go out in the desert and collect rocks,” said Commerford, a building inspector for the city of Orange. “We (wreck divers) recover and restore nautical artifacts that if left on the sea bottom would eventually deteriorate completely. . . . It’s the same kind of thing.”

Commerford said recent federal legislation that will place more wrecks off-limits to divers makes the United States “as bad as the Indonesians when it comes to this kind of thing.”

At the opening of the court session Thursday, the judge asked both the prosecutor and the defense counsel if they knew where the four were, but both said they did not. The judge decided to continue with the case in their absence.

The six remaining gave “V” for victory signs as they left the courtroom.

“It’s great news. But they’ve still taken 72 days of our lives,” said Paul Martino, a burly 40-year-old Australian from Newcastle, New South Wales, who was detained along with his 17-year-old son.

The two Americans who stayed behind, twins Bruce and Robert Lanham of Pleasant Hill, Calif., said they would continue the hunger strike they began 10 days ago until they are set free. They started the hunger strike to protest the length of time the court was taking with the case, and are only taking water.

The Briton detained is Mark Tomlinson, 29, of Cleethorpes, South Humberside.

The judge also rejected charges against the five Indonesian crew members.

They were all detained at gunpoint on March 22 when their boat was escorted into Tanjung Pinang harbor, about 60 miles southeast of Singapore, by an Indonesian patrol vessel.

The prosecution charged that they had entered Indonesian waters illegally and were conducting scientific research in Indonesia’s restricted offshore economic zone without the necessary authorization.

The 10, who denied they were treasure hunters, said they were on a two-week scuba diving holiday and were in international waters when they were picked up.

Indonesia has stepped up patrols to prevent illegal treasure hunting since accusing a group in 1986 of pirating treasure worth $15 million from the wreck of the Geldermarsten, an 18th-Century Dutch schooner.

Times staff writer Bob Schwartz contributed to this story from Orange County.