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Luthfi blames Fathanah in beef graft case
Former Prosperous Justice Party chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq attempted to avoid prison time for his alleged role in the beef-import graft case by shifting the blame on to his close aide, Ahmad Fathanah
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ormer Prosperous Justice Party chairman Luthfi HasanIshaaq attempted to avoid prison time for his alleged role in the beef-importgraft case by shifting the blame on to his close aide, Ahmad Fathanah.
In his defense plea, which was read by his lawyer M. Assegaf on Wednesday, Luthfi said that Fathanah had exploited his close relationship with Luthfi, with whom he had been friends since they studied together in King Saud University, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, to get money from Maria Elizabeth Liman, president director of meat importer PT Indoguna Utama.
'Through Luthfi, Fathanah could ask for Rp 1.3 billion [US$117,000] from Maria and that money never went to Luthfi,' Assegaf said as he read the defense plea.
Therefore, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors' demand that Luthfi should be sentenced to an 18-year prison term and ordered to pay Rp 1.5 billion in fines for colluding with Fathanah in committing the graft was baseless, according to Assegaf.
