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Businesswoman jailed for illegally selling COVID-19 shots
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A healthcare worker prepares a dose of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine during a mass vaccination program in Sanur, Bali, on March 23, 2021. (Reuters/Nyimas Laula)
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property businesswoman in Medan, North Sumatra, has been sentenced to more than a year in prison and additional fines after a court found her guilty of illegally charging people for COVID-19 vaccines, the supply of which was secured by bribing state-employed doctors.
Medan District Court sentenced Selviwaty to 20 months in prison and ordered her to pay a Rp 50 million (US$3,518) fine on Wednesday. Failure to pay the fine will result in an additional two months’ imprisonment.
The sentence, however, was less than the prosecutors’ demand of 30 months’ imprisonment and Rp 100 million in fines or an additional four months if she failed to pay the fine.
Presiding judge Saut Maruli Tua Pasaribu, who read the ruling in a teleconference hearing on Wednesday, said the defendant was found to have bribed the state-employed doctors in exchange for vaccine supplies to be sold to the public, in violation of Article 5 of the 2001 Corruption Law.
“The defendant is found guilty of bribing or promising something to civil servants,” said Saut.
Selviwaty has already accepted her 20-month sentence, while prosecutor Hendri Sipahutar has yet to make it clear whether or not he will apply for an appeal.
Selviwaty was arrested by the police in Medan in May along with three other suspects. Two of the three suspects are state-employed doctors, identified only as IW, a doctor in Tanjung Gusta Penitentiary, and KS, a doctor who worked in the North Sumatra Health Agency.
