T

he Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced former Papua governor Barnabas Suebu to four years and six months on Thursday after he was found guilty for inflating prices for a designing project in 2008.

Barnabas was convicted for having directed detail engineering design (DED) projects for construction at Paniai and Sentani lakes in 2008 as well as similar design projects for Urumuka and Memberamo rivers in 2009 and 2010, respectively, to be executed by his company, PT Konsultasi Pembangunan Irian Jaya (KPIJ).

Aside from the sentence, Barnabas has been ordered to pay a total of Rp 150 million in fines or spend a further three months in prison. The panel of judges have stated that there were several reasons that led them to ease his sentence.

'€œ[Barnabas] has shown that he tries to follow up [Supreme Audit Agency'€™s clarification] requests on the DED project reports,'€ said judge Tito Suhud on Thursday. After having served as governor from 1988 through to 1993, during the Soeharto era, Barnabas had been re-elected governor in a regional election in 2006 and governed Papua until 2011. Once named '€œHero of the Environment'€ by Time magazine, Barnabas was a member at the People'€™s Consultative Assembly (MPR) from 1997 until 2002 and named Indonesian ambassador to Mexico, overseeing Mexico, Honduras and Panama.