Corruption High Court rules on BI graft defendants

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 03/06/2009 12:05 PM  |  National

According to the Corruption High Court, the alleged embezzlement of Rp 68.5 billion (US$5.6 million) of Bank Indonesia (BI) funds given to former BI officials for legal aid in 2003 would not eventuate in any loss to the state.

The former BI officials had returned some of the embezzled money and promised to return the rest money by 2011, Madya Suhardja, spokesman of the high court, said on Friday.

"This means there will be no state losses," he said as quoted by kompas.com.

Madya also said the high court had reduced the prison term of convicted former BI legal bureau head Oey Hoey Tiong from four years to 3.5, because at the time of committing his crime Oey had been acting under orders from his superiors.

However, the high court had prolonged the sentence of former BI communications head Rusli Simanjuntak to 4.5 years in prison, six months more than was handed down by the Corruption Court.

Previously, the high court had also extended the prison term of the former BI governor Burhanuddin Abdullah, by six months to 5.5 years, for his role in the misappropriation.

Abdullah was said to have known about and approved the disbursement of Rp 100 billion of BI Indonesian Banking Development Foundation (YPPI) funds.

The money was used for personal and family expenses, including buying homes and opening savings accounts, as well as to halt investigations by the Attorney General's Office into BI Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) cases involving five former senior BI officials - Paul Sutopo, Hendro Budiyanto and Heru Soepraptomo, Iwan R. Prawiranata and Soedradjad Djiwandono.

And until now, despite the seemingly suspicious nature of their cases, these five former BI officials have remained off the hook.

The remaining Rp 31.5 billion of the YPPI money had allegedly been given to members of the House of Representatives' then Commission IX (which oversaw financial affairs) to expedite the settlement of the BLBI cases and the amendment of the 1999 BI law. (dre)

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