A court in Indonesia has sentenced two football officials to prison after they were found guilty of negligence in the case of a stadium crash that killed 135 people and has become one of the world’s deadliest sporting disasters.
The incident took place in October 2022 when a tense match in Malang, East Java, between bitter rivals Arema FC and Persebaya Surabaya ended in chaos, with a field invasion and police responding with volleys of tear gas that choked spectators and forced crowds to flee to exits – some of which were locked – resulting in the deadly crush.
Race organizer Abdul Haris was found guilty on Thursday of “negligence that caused people to die,” said the judge at the court in the city of Surabaya, about 780 kilometers east of the capital Jakarta.
Prosecutors had demanded six years in prison.
“I sentence the defendant to one and a half years in prison,” said Presiding Judge Abu Achmad Sidqi Amsya.
The judges also found a stadium security official, Suko Sutrisno, guilty of negligence and sentenced him to one year in prison.
“The defendant did not foresee the chaos because there has never been an emergency situation before. The defendant also did not properly understand his task as a security officer,” said the judge.
Both men have seven days to appeal the verdict.
Three police officers – who were also charged with crimes following the Kanjuruhan Stadium disaster – will have their sentences determined at a later date.
Match official Abdul Haris’ legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington, reporting from Jakarta, said the legal proceedings focused on the officials responsible for the fateful match.
“What we heard from the prosecution is that the organizing committee, the match officials, well, they had a responsibility to make sure spectators were safe, the stadium gates were unlocked and the evacuation routes were clear,” said Washington.
“The answer we heard from the defense was that while, yes, capacity may have been an issue – over 43,000 tickets have been sold for this match – the same number of people had attended matches in that stadium in previous matches… and there had been no security incidents,” she said.
The defense also “pointed the finger at the police and put the blame mainly on the police firing tear gas,” Washington added.
Video footage from the night of the tragedy showed police not only firing tear gas at fans who had forced their way onto the pitch, but also at spectators in the stands.
Football fans evacuate a girl from Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang, East Java, Indonesia on October 2, 2022 (File: H Prabowo/EPA-EFE)
“That resulted in people panicking and running to the gates, only to find that many of the gates were closed, locked, and they couldn’t escape the tear gas-filled stadium,” Washington said.
Investigators from Indonesia’s human rights body also placed most of the blame on the police for the “indiscriminate” and “excessive” use of tear gas at night, she added.
That investigation revealed that police had fired 45 tear gas grenades at crowds at the stadium, the media reported.
The governing body of the football world, FIFA, has banned the use of tear gas as a crowd control measure in stadiums.
Of the 135 people who died that night at the stadium in Malang, 38 were under the age of 17 and the youngest victim was just three years old.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said shortly after the disaster that his government would demolish and rebuild the stadium and announced the cessation of all competitive football matches. The league games resumed last month, without fans in the stands.
A total of five people were tried after the tragedy at the stadium, including the three police officers whose verdict will not be known until next week.
Video shared on social media last month appeared to show Indonesian police officers attempting to disrupt the trial of the three officers as prosecutors arrived at the court on Feb. 14.
Indonesia’s Legal Aid Institute, in conjunction with several other civil society groups, said in a statement after the court incident that the behavior of the police officers clearly showed an abuse of power and was intended to disrupt the legal process.
Following the stadium disaster, Indonesian National Police Chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo fired Malang Police Chief Ferli Hidayat and relieved nine officers of their duties.