SBY's in-law Aulia Pohan gets 4.5 years for corruption

The Corruption Court sentenced Wednesday former Bank Indonesia (BI) deputy governor Aulia Pohan, father in law of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's son,  to four and a half years in jail for corruption.

The court also handed down the same sentence to BI deputy governor Maman Soemantri. Two former BI deputy governors, Bun Bunan EJ Hutapea and Aslim Tadjuddin, meanwhile received four year sentences each.

Presiding judge Kresna Menon also ordered them to each pay Rp 200 million (US$20 million) in fines or else serve another six months in prison.

“The four defendants, as members of the BI board of governors, approved the disbursment of Rp 100 billion from the BI’s Indonesian Banking Development Foundation (YPPI) in 2003,” judge Edward Pattinasarani said.

Aulia and Maman were chairman and deputy chairman of the YPPI board of advisor’s respectively at the time of the crime.

The money from the YPPI was used to cover the legal expenses of five former senior BI officials implicated in the BI Liquidity Support (BLBI) graft cases and give political settlements to the BLBI, as well as accelerate the the House of Representatives' amendment of BI law.