Industrial court judge gets 6 years

The Bandung Corruption Court has sentenced an ad hoc judge at the Bandung Industrial Court, Imas Dianasari, to six years in prison and ordered her to pay a Rp 200 million (US$22,400) fine for accepting Rp 532 million in bribes.

Imas was found guilty of accepting Rp 352 million in bribes from PT Onamba Indonesia in return for dismissing 176 of its workers. She also amassed another Rp 200 million in bribes from the same company in return for helping the company in supervising an appeal process filed with the Supreme Court against the lower court’s decision.

The company, situated in West Karawang, West Java, lodged a request to terminate the 176 workers with the industrial court after the workers staged a protest demanding a wage increase.

Bandung Corruption Court presiding judge Singgih Budi Prakoso said Monday that the panel of judges had decided to hand down a six-year prison term for Imas – less than half of the 13 years demanded by Corruption Eradication Commission prosecutors – because the panel considered the prosecutors’ demand “too emotional”.

“[The 13 years demanded by the prosecutors] was far from the four years and six months the prosecutors are seeking for [Onamba HRD manager] suspect Odih Juanda,” he said, adding that there were many other corruption cases that had caused larger state losses.

Singgih stressed the importance of proportional sentences to corruption suspects.

“There will be no ‘white area’. Punishment is merely a small part of one system to eradicate corruption,” he said. (swd/mtq)