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Juliari’s ridiculous sentence
It was a tragedy that the KPK and the Jakarta Corruption Court showered Juliari with a merciful indictment and verdict.
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Under arrest: Social Affairs Minister Juliari Batubara (center) emerges from a Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) interrogation room after a questioning. The KPK named Juliari a suspect in a bribery case on Dec. 6, 2020. (Tribunnews/Irwan Rismawan)
A
s a graft defendant, former social affairs minister Juliari Peter Batubara did not show any remorse during his trial and insisted that he was just an innocent victim of his subordinates. Shamelessly, he even asked the court to acquit him for the sake of his two children and his wife.
Some may ask why he looked so confident — as if he had not committed a crime or suggested that he deserved protection.
He apologized only to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who had given him the ministerial post, and to Megawati Soekarnoputri, his boss in the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggles (PDI-P). Juliari did not care about the fact that he had robbed millions of poor people of government assistance amid the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.
In a plea to the panel of judges, Juliari whined: ”Please end our suffering by acquitting me of all charges. We pray that the kindness of the honorable panel of judges will receive a worthy reward from God Almighty”.
He acted like he was free of guilt, though the evidence presented during his trial showed otherwise.
The public was furious with Juliari for his gross violation; he stole the people’s money during a health disaster and should have received life in prison or perhaps the death sentence, according to the Corruption Law.
The court sentenced Juliari to 12 years in prison, a year longer than the sentence demanded by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors, and gave him a fine of Rp 500 million (US$34,731). He was also ordered to repay Rp 14.59 billion in restitution or face an additional two years behind bars.
Juliari was found guilty of accepting Rp 32.48 billion in bribes from vendors supplying COVID-19 staple food packages. He put into his own pocket Rp 10,000 from each package containing food, cooking oil and other supplies, while also receiving payment from the contractor. The project, which was supervised by the Social Ministry, was worth Rp 5.9 trillion.
It was a tragedy that the KPK and the Jakarta Corruption Court showered Juliari with a merciful indictment and verdict. A KPK spokesman praised the verdict as a deterrence to other state officials who have thought about stealing state the people's money — which is clearly not the case in the trial of Juliari. Article 2 (2) of the 1999 Corruption Law allows for the death penalty if the act of corruption involves money used to mitigate a natural disaster or state of emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic has been declared a national-scale disaster, but both KPK prosecutors and the panel of judges failed to take that into consideration.
To make amends for its mistake, the KPK should challenge the ridiculous, if not laughable, verdict and demand for a heavier sentence. Just recently, we witnessed graft convicts enjoying leniency in the forms of sentence remissions, light sentences and sentence cuts, which has only undermined our fight against corruption.
True, the KPK is much less powerful now, thanks to the House of Representatives' political move to castrate the once-powerful and highly respected antigraft body. Juliari is just one of the beneficiaries of political maneuvering, and more crooks will follow his good fortune if we, the people, relent.
