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fter previously denying the reports, the Law and Human Rights Ministry acknowledged on Tuesday that it had released four graft convicts on parole despite the Corruption Eradication Commission'€™s (KPK) decision not to recommend their release.

The ministry released the four graft convicts in August, the same month it made a controversial decision to grant parole to business tycoon Siti Hartati Murdaya.

On Monday, officials from the ministry denied that a decision had been made to release more graft convicts on parole.

'€œYes, it is true that there are five people, including Hartati, who received parole in August. We treat graft convicts fairly and if they meet all the requirements then we will give them their right [to parole],'€ the ministry'€™s director-general of penitentiaries, Handoyo Sudrajat, said on Tuesday.

The four graft convicts included Fahd el Fouz, a businessman who was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison in December 2012 for bribing a lawmaker to get access to regional development funding; and Sumartono, the head of the Democratic Party faction at the Semarang City Council (DPRD II), who was sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison in May 2012 for accepting bribes in connection with city-budget allocations at the council.

The other parole-grantees are Agung Purno Sarjono, a National Mandate Party (PAN) lawmaker from Semarang, who in the same case that implicated Sumartono was sentenced to 2-and-a-half years in prison in June 2012; as well as I Nyoman Suisnaya, an official at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, who was sentenced to 3 years for accepting bribes related to a government project at the ministry.

Earlier, the KPK warned the Law and Human Rights Ministry not to grant any more paroles to graft convicts, especially those whose cases had been handled by the KPK, without first receiving its recommendation.

The KPK said that in order to be eligible for parole, a graft convict must first be granted justice collaborator status from the antigraft body.

However, Handoyo insisted that the ministry had the right to go ahead with the granting of paroles for graft suspects even without a recommendation from the KPK.

'€œThey are not justice collaborators, but they meet all the necessary requirements to be eligible for parole because they had served two-thirds of their prison terms,'€ Handoyo said. Handoyo had earlier blamed the KPK for the release of Hartati from prison.

Handoyo said that his directorate had written to the KPK asking for a recommendation on whether to grant Hartati parole, but the KPK'€™s response arrived too late.

Handoyo said that he had sent the letter to the KPK on June 30 but that the ministry only received the commission'€™s reply on July 16.

'€œHad the KPK said '€˜no'€™, of course we would not have released her,'€ he said.