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Jakarta Post

Andi drags brother into graft quagmire

Going down: Former youth and sports minister Andi Alfan Mallarangeng gets ready to leave the Jakarta Corruption Court after hearing the court’s verdict on Friday

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Sat, July 19, 2014

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Andi drags brother into graft quagmire Going down: Former youth and sports minister Andi Alfan Mallarangeng gets ready to leave the Jakarta Corruption Court after hearing the court’s verdict on Friday. The court sentenced Andi to four years in prison and a fine of Rp 200 million (US$ 17,184) for his involvement in the Hambalang sports complex graft case. (Antara/Ismar Patrizki) (US$ 17,184) for his involvement in the Hambalang sports complex graft case. (Antara/Ismar Patrizki)

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span class="inline inline-none">Going down: Former youth and sports minister Andi Alfan Mallarangeng gets ready to leave the Jakarta Corruption Court after hearing the court'€™s verdict on Friday. The court sentenced Andi to four years in prison and a fine of Rp 200 million (US$ 17,184) for his involvement in the Hambalang sports complex graft case. (Antara/Ismar Patrizki)

Former youth and sports minister Andi Alifian Mallarangeng, who was convicted of graft on Friday, urged the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to prosecute those directly involved in graft violations, including his own brother.

According to Andi, KPK prosecutors should indict those directly responsible for swindling money from the Hambalang sports complex project in Bogor, West Java.

In his post-trial statement, Andi implied that his younger brother, Andi '€œChoel'€ Zulkarnain Mallarangeng, should be dragged in.

'€œWhoever commits a crime must be held responsible for it, including my brother. Even the prosecution believes this,'€ Andi said at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Friday.

Andi was found guilty of accepting a US$550,000 commission for the project through Choel.

Andi was also proven to have accepted Rp 4 billion from PT Global Daya Manunggal, the project subcontractor, also through Choel, who is still a witness in the case but has been questioned by the KPK several times.

On Friday, a panel of judges led by judge Haswandi sentenced Andi to four years in prison and Rp 200 million (US$17,224) in fines, with an additional two months behind bars if he fails to pay.

However, the court will subtract the time Andi has spent in jail since his arrest from his total prison term.

The verdict for the senior Democratic Party politician and confidant of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was much lower than that demanded by KPK prosecutors, which was 10 years in prison and Rp 300 million in fines, or serve another six months behind bars if he could not afford to pay.

The court also dropped its demands for Andi to return state funds amounting to Rp 2.5 billion because he was found to not have enriched himself. The money was instead used for various operational fees and other logistics.

When the judges gave Andi a chance to comment, he announced his plan to file an appeal.

'€œThe judges said themselves that I didn'€™t benefit from the violations. I did not receive anything from anyone. The fact this occurred in the Hambalang project is undisputed according to witness accounts,'€ Andi told reporters after the trial.

'€œIt seems the panel of judges want me to take responsibility for failing in my duties as the leader of the Youth and Sports Ministry.'€

Andi said he did not believe the sentence was the best way for him to take responsibility, but regretted not being able to avoid the violations.

'€œI regret not being able to prevent the violations. I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to forestall it,'€ he lamented.

Although the plan to build the Hambalang complex encountered several problems, the Youth and Sports Ministry rigged the tender to benefit PT Adhi Karya, thanks to an 18 percent commitment fee the company paid to a number of ministry officials and lawmakers at the House of Representatives.

In exchange for the fee, the company received Rp 543 billion worth of construction work on the project.

According to the prosecutors, Choel met with Andi'€™s former secretary Wafid Muharam and the ministry'€™s financial and internal affairs chief Deddy Kusdinar in 2010 to negotiate his brother'€™s cut of the project.

KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto said in a press conference late on Friday that Andi'€™s case made the Hambalang case dossier clearer.

'€œThere was a lot of consideration of the verdict. It served to connect the dots and explain the relations among those involved,'€ Bambang said.

Bambang acknowledged the verdict would be important in determining whether the case as a whole would be developed further.

Even so, Bambang also reminded that all verdicts were not yet legally permanent, and that a different verdict from the State High Court or the Supreme Court might spell trouble for the KPK.

'€œThat'€™s why we aren'€™t in a hurry to prosecute the next suspect. We will have to determine what to do next according to the available investigators and which cases can be solved as efficiently as possible,'€ he said.

The case has also implicated former Adhi Karya director Teuku Bagus Mohammad Noor, former Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum, and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) legislator Olly Dondokambey. (tjs)

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