T

he Supreme Court has ruled in favor of former bankruptcy judge Syarifuddin in a civil case against the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and ordered the antigraft body to pay compensation of Rp 100 million (US$8,471) to the former judge, who was sentenced to four years'€™ imprisonment for accepting bribes while handling a case in 2011.

In a ruling dated March 13, the appellate panel, comprising justices Syamsul Ma'€™arif, Hamdan and Valerine J.L. Kriekhoff, found that money confiscated as evidence was not related to the bribery case.

The panel agreed with the arguments of the South Jakarta District Court panel that on April 19, 2012, found the KPK'€™s seizure to be an unlawful act that harmed the plaintiff.

They later ordered the KPK to pay Syarifuddin Rp 100 million for '€œthe non-material losses he suffered'€ and return 25 items KPK prosecutors confiscated, including cash worth more than Rp 2 billion in US, Thai, Japanese, Cambodian and Singaporean currencies, as well as a laptop and several cell phones.

Syarifuddin was arrested by KPK investigators at his home in Sunter, North Jakarta, on June 2011, shortly after he received Rp 250 million in bribes to secure a case he was handling. The investigators found the Rp 2 billion stashed in his house.

However, in January last year, the Jakarta High Court annulled the lower court'€™s ruling, saying the evidence was part of the criminal case and the annulment was made to maintain the status of the evidence.

Syarifuddin later filed a cassation appeal against the KPK in October 2013.

Although KPK deputy chief Bambang Widjojanto said his office respected the ruling, he pointed out that the Supreme Court arguments on the seizure of the evidence was highly debatable given the nature of a civil case.

Bambang said that he believed the KPK had followed the proper procedures in confiscating the evidence, saying that the ruling would not hinder the KPK in handling other graft cases.'€œIt'€™s part of the challenge that needs to be addressed,'€ he said.

Back in 2012, Syarifuddin'€™s graft case raised eyebrows. Syarifuddin was sentenced '€” by the Jakarta Corruption Court in February 2012 '€” to four years in prison for accepting Rp 250 million in bribes while handling a bankruptcy case.

However, the jail term was more lenient than the 20-year sentence requested by the KPK prosecutors as the bench used different grounds in the case.

The judges disagreed with prosecutors who argued that Syarifuddin accepted a bribe from Puguh Wirawan, a trustee in the bankruptcy case of garment maker PT Skycamping Indonesia '€” which had earlier been declared insolvent '€” to change the status of land owned by the company, so that the land could be sold.

Although the judges found Syarifuddin, as a supervisory judge, guilty of allowing a breach of procedure to transpire during the bankruptcy process, they said that as a supervisory judge in the bankruptcy case, Syarifuddin did not have the authority to change the land status. They also found that the land had already been illegally sold without the bankruptcy court'€™s consent.