For a second time, NasDem Party chairman Surya Paloh, the owner of PT Media Group, which runs Metro TV and Media Indonesia, defied a court summons to testify in the trial of the pro-government party'€™s former secretary-general, Patrice Rio Capella, at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday.

Last week, the media mogul failed to notify the court of his absence to testify, and as for Monday'€™s no-show he claimed to have been receiving medical treatment for an unexplained illness at a hospital in Singapore.

Surya'€™s status remains that of a witness in the case, in which Rio stands accused of accepting Rp 200 million (US$14,450) in bribes from suspended North Sumatra governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho to help halt a graft case implicating the governor at the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO), which is now led by Attorney General, a former grandee of NasDem.

Surya was ordered to testify following the KPK'€™s move to summons him for clarification in October to complete Rio'€™s dossiers.

'€œThe witness sent [a message] at 9:30 a.m. local time in Singapore. He is undergoing medical treatment at Mount Elizabeth Hospital there,'€ KPK prosecutor Yudi Kristiana told the panel of judges at the court.

Surya is the last witness to be grilled at the court. The court decided not to issue more summonses for Surya and read his testimonies recorded by KPK investigators in October.

In the investigation document, Surya explained the chronology of a meeting he mediated to seek a political truce between Gatot, who is a Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician, and his deputy Tengku Erry Nuradi, a NasDem politician.

Rio helped connect Gatot with Surya to facilitate the NasDem meeting after months of discord between the governor and Erry since taking office in 2014. Gatot suspected that it was Erry who engineered the graft case at the AGO to topple him from the governorship.

The meeting had mended the pair'€™s relationship but Gatot felt that he needed to halt the case at the AGO to ensure that his governorship was '€œsafe'€ from any legal prosecution in the future.

The KPK has accused Rio of promising Gatot to bridge communication with Prasetyo to materialize the scheme.

The KPK investigation document read at the court on Monday, however, failed to elaborate further on Surya'€™s roles in the case. Last, week the court grilled Gatot as a witness in the case to find out whether the governor had also bribed Surya for mediating the NasDem meeting.

As the court gave up on summoning Surya, it went ahead on Monday to grill Rio to hear his defense against the KPK'€™s allegations to wrap up hearing the case.

Grilling a defendant is the last phase of a court hearing before prosecutors from the KPK read their sentence demands to prosecute a defendant in a graft case.

Normally, a court has the right to issue a third summons for a witness who refuses to testify in a graft case before issuing an order to bring the respective witness in with force. However, the court decided not to take the option.

During his questioning on Monday, Rio partially admitted wrongdoing in the case. He said that he was wrong to accept money from a friend '€œwithout knowing what was the money for'€ considering the fact that he was an acting House member when he had accepted the money.

'€œI had already tried to return it to Francisca but she refused to take it back. I admit that it was wrong but I can tell you that it [the money] has nothing to do with the [NasDem] meeting and the AGO,'€ Rio said.

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