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hearing at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Thursday revealed that it was prominent lawyer OC Kaligis who had suggested filing a plea on behalf of North Sumatra governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho.

For his insistence on courting such a minor plea, which sought to challenge a letter of summons for Gatot issued by North Sumatra Prosecutor'€™s Office in a graft case, the 73-year old lawyer charged the governor US$30,000 for a total of eight hearings conducted at the Medan State Administrative Court (PTUN Medan). This fee was in addition to other hefty fees that Gatot'€™s wife, Evi Susanty, complained of as '€œtoo much'€.

Every time Kaligis attended a hearing at the Medan court, which later approved the plea to drop the prosecutors'€™ probe in July, he demanded a Rp 60 million ($4,095) accommodation fee from the couple.

'€œI have received [the $30,000]. If the court clerk asks another $2,500, I will use my own money first [but later you should replace it],'€ said Kaligis to Evi in one of the wiretapped conversations played by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Thursday during Kaligis'€™ trial hearing.

The KPK in July moved to arrest Kaligis, Evi and Gatot after it found that the three had bribed three PTUN Medan judges after the court ruled in favor of Gatot, who had his summons letter on a graft case invalidated after the court ruling.

Evi, who was presented as a witness during Thursday'€™s hearing, said she had no choice but to give another $2,500 to Kaligis for the PTUN Medan clerk, adding that Kaligis kept asking her for money for the purpose of winning the plea at the court.

'€œCan you give me an estimation of how much it is we are likely to pay if we want to get assistance for a case at PTUN? Surprisingly, I am asked another $2,500. I mean it is better if we know the fixed price because that way we don'€™t have to pay time after time like this,'€ Evi complained to Kaligis'€™s staffer Yulius '€œIwan'€ Irawansyah as revealed by a bugged conversation played by KPK prosecutors.

Evi further said that she was aware about the dirty scheme to bribe the PTUN judges to win the case and she was afraid of being arrested should the KPK have bugged their conversation about the scheme. Kaligis tried to calm her down by saying that their conversation '€œwas safe'€ and she did not need to worry about being monitored by law enforcement agencies.

The KPK wiretapped all of Kaligis'€™ conversations with Evi before and after the conclusion of the case at the PTUN, including the one when Kaligis told Evi that '€œeverything was under control'€.

Evi said that her rejection of the registration of the plea was based on the fact that Gatot and his deputy governor and NasDem Party politician Tengku Erry had achieved a truce with one another after several political disagreements. It was Kaligis, who is also a NasDem senior politician, who mediated the truce meeting.

The wife suspected that the case against Gatot at the North Sumatra court appeared after the governor became involved in a number of disagreements with his deputy, and that furthermore, after the truce in May, the prosecutors'€™ office appeared to act more leniently toward Gatot in the case.

'€œThere is an issue that the report against Gatot to the prosecutors came after the disharmony emerged. I asked Kaligis to help solve the dispute through a truce mechanism,'€ said Evi in her investigation document read out by KPK prosecutors at the court.

'€œAfter the truce, Kaligis phoned me saying that despite the truce he would go ahead with the PTUN plan but I rejected the plan because Gatot believed that everything would be fine if he maintained the harmonious relationship with his deputy. I said to him [Kaligis], no, but he insisted on registering the plea to the PTUN,'€ Evi added.