Supreme Court gives former BI gov lighter sentence

The Supreme Court has sentenced former Bank Indonesia (BI) governor Burhanuddin Abdullah to three years in jail, far lighter than the five-and-a-half-year sentence he received from the Jakarta High Court, for his involvement in the Rp 100 billion (US$10 million) embezzlement of BI funds.

Nurhadi, a Supreme Court spokesman, said Wednesday that a five-member board of judges had decided to approve Burhanuddin's appeal.

The Corruption Court had previously sentenced Abdullah to five years’ imprisonment after he was found  "legally and convincingly guilty of committing collective fraud" with other members of the BI board of governors, as well as with the central bank's former legal bureau head Oey Hoey Tiong and former communications head Rusli Simanjuntak.

Abdullah was said to have known about and approved the disbursement of the Rp 100 billion from BI's Indonesian Banking Development Foundation (YPPI) in 2003.

The funds were reportedly used to halt investigations by the Attorney General's Office into the BLBI cases as well as given to members of the House of Representatives' then Commission IX, which oversaw financial affairs, to expedite the settlement of BLBI cases and the amendment of the 1999 BI law. (dre)