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witness at the Jakarta Corruption Court said on Monday that the money seized by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators during a sting operation on Bali in April was intended to be funneled to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle'€™s (PDI-P) congress.

The president director of PT Indo Mineral, Suparta aka Keta, who testified as a witness during the trial of his businessman boss Andrew Hidayat on Monday, said that prior to the arrest of his boss and PDI-P politician Adriansyah in Bali, Andrew told him that the politician had asked him for money to help fund the party congress.

'€œBefore the arrest I was told that the money was for the PDI-P congress in Bali,'€ Keta told the court on Monday, adding that he remained uninformed about how much money Andrew gave to Adriansyah at that time.

The money was taken from the coffers of South Kalimantan-based company PT Mitra Maju Sukses (MMS), another company owned by Andrew.

The witness said that after the arrest he instructed staff members of the PT MMS to hide the company'€™s financial books that recorded the flow of the money from PT MMS to Adriansyah in a move to prevent KPK investigators from having grounds to confiscate more money in the future.

'€œAt that time I did not know what to do. I was in a panic. I just did what I thought could help my friend [Andrew],'€ Keta added.

KPK prosecutors have indicted Andrew for bribery, accusing him of paying multiple bribes, including the US$50,000 confiscated in Bali, to secure a mining permit in Tanah Laut regency, South Kalimantan.

Adriansyah, before being elected as a lawmaker in 2014, was regent of resource-rich Tanah Laut between 2003 and 2013.

The case allegedly started back in 2012 when Andrew approached Adriansyah to ask him to issue a permit for PT Dutadharma Utama, a company operating in Tanah Laut, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors added that the PDI-P politician later granted the company a permit despite the fact that the company failed to submit all necessary documents.

After the issuance of the permit, the businessman allegedly gave an initial payoff of around US$50,000 in November, after Adriansyah was sworn in as a House lawmaker, and then paid another Rp 500 million one week later.

More money amounting to Rp 500 million was suspected to have been wired to Adriansyah in January, four months before the KPK claimed they caught the PDI-P lawmaker red-handed accepting the $50,000 cash bribe in Bali.

The revelation about the connection between the confiscated money and the PDI-P congress in Bali was first revealed by Andrew'€™s lawyer Bambang Hartono at the Jakarta Corruption Court on June 29, when KPK prosecutors indicted the businessman in the case.

After the indictment hearing of his client, Bambang denied all the KPK accusations, saying that none the money given to the PDI-P politician had anything to do with the mining permit granted by Adriansyah for Andrew'€™s companies, but merely constituted an innocent exchange '€œbetween friends'€.

Bambang said that Andrew always helped Adriansyah by lending him money when the politician needed it. Bambang revealed that the money that the KPK confiscated in Bali was related to the PDI-P congress.

'€œThe money was about to be given to the congress committee, but to no avail because [Adriansyah] was already arrested in the first place,'€ Bambang said.

PDI-P secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto has denied any connection between the allegedly dirty money and the party congress, calling Bambang'€™s revelation a '€œtotal lie'€. '€œTwo weeks before the congress we held a meeting with party members and we all agreed that we no longer needed funds from members for the congress at that time,'€ Hasto said.

The PDI-P moved to revoke Adriyansah'€™s party membership over his offense of tarnishing the image of the party.