A Supreme Court hearing on Monday has ruled to cut the prison sentence for former maritime affairs and fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo.
The Supreme Court on Monday cut the prison sentence for former maritime affairs and fisheries minister Edhy Prabowo.
The cassation court upheld the ruling by the Jakarta High Court that found Edhy guilty of accepting bribes in a corruption scandal involving the export of lobster larvae, but reduced his sentence from the previous nine years in jail handed down by the appellate court to five years.
The Supreme Court also shortened the period Edhy is barred from running for public office after he serves the jail sentence, from three years as previously handed down by the Jakarta High Court to two years.
Supreme Court justice and spokesperson Andy Samsan Nganro said that a three-member cassation panel presiding over the case – consisting of justices Sofyan Sitompul, Gazalba Saleh and Sinintha Yuliansih Sibarani – found that Edhy’s good performance during his time as a Cabinet minister warranted a lesser sentence.
“[They found that Edhy], when serving as maritime affairs and fisheries minister, had done well and given great hope to the community, especially fishermen,” Andi said on Wednesday, as quoted by kompas.com.
The bench cited Edhy’s decision to roll back an export ban on lobster larvae that was put in place by his predecessor Susi Pudjiastuti as the evidence of Edhy’s work in improving the welfare of Indonesian fishermen.
Over concerns that exports would leave Indonesia’s lobster larvae stock vulnerable to overfishing and extinction, Susi penned a ministerial regulation in 2016 that banned lobster larvae exports.
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