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art of the massive investigation into the bribery scandal surrounding the athletes’ village construction project for the Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, South Sumatra, has come to an end, as two of a dozen officials implicated in the scandal were convicted on Wednesday.

The Jakarta Corruption Court separately sentenced Mindo Rosalina Manulang and Muhammad El Idris to two years and six months and two years in prison, respectively, for paying bribes.

The sentencing came exactly five months after both Mindo, a marketing director at PT Anak Negeri, a company owned by key defendant Muhammad Nazaruddin, and El Idris, a marketing manager at PT Duta Graha Indah (DGI), the company which won the project, were caught red-handed on April 21, 2011, giving Rp 3.2 billion (US$361,600) to Wafid Muharram, Secretary to the Youth and Sports minister.

The verdicts against the two only confirmed that corrupt practices and irregularities surrounding the construction project had indeed happened.

Still, the trial of Mindo and El Idris also revealed that the two were not key players in the bribery scandal. The two repeatedly said in court that they were only pawns in the case, which potentially involved those in high political positions in the Republic.

Besides Wafid, whose case is also being tried at the Corruption Court, and Nazaruddin — a former House of Representatives legislator and former treasurer of the Democratic Party — who has also been declared a suspect, a number of politicians have been widely named in the scandal.

Mindo has testified in court that Democratic Party legislator Angelina Sondakh played an important role in the bribery scandal while El Idris, although he did not specify, separately insisted that Youth and Sports Minister Andi A. Mallarangeng knew about the scandal.

Another witness, Yulianis, a deputy financial director with Nazaruddin’s Permai Group who had testified in court against Mindo, said in another court session that Angelina and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle legislator I Wayan Koster were indeed involved in the scheme.

Meanwhile, Nazaruddin has on many occasions implicated Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairman Chandra M. Hamzah and former National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi, besides Angelina, Andi and Koster.

It is true that all those implicated, except the already convicted Mindo and El Idris, have denied their involvement in the scandal. But the anticorruption commission — the KPK — which is tasked with investigating the case, should also include the convicts’ testimonies in court and not disregard the accusations made by Nazaruddin as well in an attempt to identify the clear and grand picture of the scandal — and most importantly in uncovering the truth and upholding justice.

The bribery scandal is essentially a multifaceted legal case as it has allegedly involved a wide variety of individuals of different hierarchies and not mere “middlemen” like Mindo and El Idris.

It is therefore the responsibility of the KPK to pursue the testimonies and evidence revealed in the trials of both Mindo and El Idris and at the same time build strong cases against others allegedly involved.

Otherwise, the ongoing prosecution will receive the same fate as previous cases — only small, powerless fry are caught while the powerful big fish remain untouchable.