T

he Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) has claimed success after putting Aru regent Teddy Tengko and former National Police chief detective Susno Duadji, both graft convicts, behind bars. But a graft watchdog says that dozens of other graft convicts remain on the loose.

The Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said on Friday that at least 56 people who were convicted of corruption between 2002 and 2013 were still breathing the air of freedom.

'€œProsecutors failed to put 23 convicts behind bars as these people were already on the run at that time. They failed to carry out their duty,'€ Emerson Yuntho of the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) said on Friday. '€œMoreover, as many as 12 convicts had yet to be executed as prosecutors had failed to sternly carry out the imprisonment process.'€

Emerson added that the remaining convicts claimed to be too ill to face imprisonment or had exhausted all existing legal avenues to overturn their convictions.

The ICW also found that the Central Java Prosecutors'€™ Office was the worst performer as it failed to execute the verdicts of 22 graft cases.

Among the graft convicts who remain free are former state-owned TV station TVRI Sumita Tobing and businessman Adelin Lis.

Sumita, who was found guilty of embezzling billions in state funds in the procurement of television camera equipment and spare parts during her tenure as TVRI chief in 2001, claimed that the Supreme Court had issued two conflicting rulings in her case.

On January 2011, the Supreme Court sentenced Sumita to 18 months in prison despite the fact that it had previously upheld a ruling by a lower court that acquitted her in the same year.

The latest ruling was issued by a different panel of justices, presided over by Artidjo, who said he himself, M. Taufik, and Suryadjaya had reached an unanimous verdict to declare Sumita guilty. In 2009, the panel of justices hearing her case comprised Andi Abu Ayub Saleh, Djafni Djamal and Muhammad Taufik.

Former Supreme Court chief justice Harifin A. Tumpa said at that time that he acknowledged an '€œerror'€ took place in the verdict numbering system that caused the website to provide false information in 2009. He said the latest ruling was correct.

In a different case, businessman Adelin was also acquitted of illegal logging charges by the lower court in November 2007 before he fled the country. Nine months later, a cassation panel at the Supreme Court later sentenced him to 10 years.

Earlier this week, reelected Aru regent Teddy Tengko was put behind bars after he dodged imprisonment after the Supreme Court found him guilty of corruption and sentenced him to four years'€™ imprisonment in April last year.

Former National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. (ret) Susno Duadji turned himself in earlier this month after blatantly defying a cassation court ruling sentencing him to three-and-a-half years in prison.