Jakarta - An Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced an
in-law of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to four-and-a-half years
in jail for his role in a multi-million-dollar embezzlement case that
embroiled the central bank.
Aulia Pohan, a former deputy governor of Bank Indonesia, and three
former colleagues at the central bank were found guilty by the
country's corruption court of misusing 100 billion rupiah (9.8
million dollars) from a foundation run by the bank in 2003.
The case is seen as a test of Indonesia's determination to uphold
the rule of law, as the country attempts to shake off its reputation
as one of the world's most corruption-prone countries.
Among the four, another former deputy governor, Maman Sumantri,
was jailed for four-and-half years while the other ex-deputies, Bun
Bunan Hutapea and Aslim Tadjuddin, received four years each.
The jail term for Pohan and Sumantri was higher than the four
years demanded by prosecutors.
All four were ordered to pay a fine of 200 million rupiah.
Pohan, whose daughter is married to Yudhoyono's eldest son, has
been detained since November and was the last Bank Indonesia official
to be arrested in the case.
Since Yudhoyono won Indonesia's first direct presidential
elections in 2004, officials including governors and former ministers
have been jailed on graft charges.
He is seeking re-election in a July 8 presidential election and
has touted his efforts to root out corruption as one of his
achievements.
Emerson Yuntho, a campaigner for the Indonesia Corruption Watch
activist group, welcomed the verdict as a sign of judicial
independence in a country where the rich and the powerful were often
untouched by the law in the past.
'The verdict shows that no one is above the law and this is
positive,' he said.
But he said he had received information that Pohan had received
privileged treatment in detention.
The indictment said 31 billion rupiah of the embezzled money was
used to bribe legislators who were conducting an inquiry into the
alleged misuse of central bank bailout funds injected into troubled
banks at the height of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
The money was also intended to influence legislators discussing an
amendment of the central bank law, prosecutors said.
The remainder was spent on legal expenses for sitting and former
Bank Indonesia officials facing prosecution over the alleged misuse
of the bailout funds, the indictment said.
The defendants have denied any wrongdoing, arguing that the money
they used belonged to the foundation, not Bank Indonesia, and
therefore their action caused no loss to the state.
In October, former central bank governor Burhanuddin Abdullah was
jailed for five years for his role in the embezzlement case.
On Tuesday, another former Bank Indonesia governor, Sjahril
Sabirin, was sent to prison to serve a two-year jail sentence for his
role in a separate corruption scandal involving a private bank.
The central bank has undergone a series of reforms after various
corruption investigations in the past decade.
Over the past year, investigations by the Corruption Eradication
Commission have led to the arrest of several high-profile figures,
including a top prosecutor, businessmen and legislators.
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