The Jakarta High Court handed down different punishments to two former Bank Indonesia (BI) executives for embezzlement Thursday.
The court sentenced former BI communication department head Rusli Simanjuntak to an additional six months in jail for receiving embezzled money while it reduced the jail term for the central bank's former legal department head Oey Hoey Tiong to three and half years.
Both former BI high-ranking officials were sentenced by a lower corruption court last December to four years in jail for involvement in the illegal distribution of the central bank's Indonesian Banking Development Foundation (YPPI) funds in 2003.
"We reduced the sentence for Oey because he did not reap personal benefits from the crime while Rusli received Rp 3 billion (approximately US$245,000) from the funds," one of the court's panel judges, Madya Suhardja, said in Jakarta on Thursday. Oey and Rusli were the senior officials at the bank assigned to distributing Rp 100 billion (US$8.2 million) of YPPI money to former BI high-rank officials and House members. Oey handed out Rp 68.5 billion to five former BI board of governors who were implicated in the bank's liquidity support (BLBI) graft cases during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis.
The former members of the board of governors are Iwan R. Prawiranata, Sudradjat Djiwandono, Heru Supraptomo, Hendro Budianto and Paul Sutopo.
Meanwhile, Rusli paid Rp 31.5 billion to two former legislators Hamka Yandhu and Anthony Zeidra Abidin in an attempt to smooth the BLBI settlement and accelerate the amendment of the BI law. Their trial revealed that Anthony returned Rp 3 billion to Rusli to "help" the House "familiarize the public with the BLBI policy."
Rusli, however, kept the money in his possession until the case went public. Both Hamka and Anthony were sentenced to three years and four and a half years respectively last month. Madya said because the panel of judges at the High Court considered Oey and Rusli to only be the "executors" in the case, they received lighter sentences than former BI governor Burhanuddin Abdullah.
In an appeal case last month, the same court sentenced former Bank Indonesia governor Burhanuddin Abdullah to an additional six months in jail for "his despicable behavior as a superior member of the public."
"They are not members of the BI board of governors so their sentence must be lower than those on that convening board," Madya said. The lower Corruption Court previously sentenced Abdullah to 5 years imprison after he was found "legally and convincingly guilty of committing collective fraud" with other members of the BI board of governors. Oey and Rusli were involved in the same scandal. Madya said the judges also required Oey and Rusli to pay Rp 200 million and Rp 240 million in fines respectively.
Rusli was also obliged to return Rp 3 billion to the state."The Corruption Eradication Commission has confiscated Rp 3 billion," he said. Also implicated in the case are four former BI governors.
They are Maman Soemantri, Bun Bunan EJ Hutapea, Aslim Tadjuddin and father in law to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's son, Aulia Pohan. All are currently standing trial at the Corruption Court.
