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raft prosecutors have demanded that Jakarta Corruption Court sentence two businessmen accused of bribing a top Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician to raise the national beef import quota to 54 months in prison.

Lead prosecutor M. Rum told a panel of judges at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Wednesday that directors of meat import company PT Indoguna Utama, Juard Effendi and Arya Abdi Effendi, should be declared guilty.

'€œWe the prosecutors demanded that the panel of judges declare the defendants guilty of corruption,'€ he said, adding the two defendants should also be ordered to pay Rp 200 million (US$20,200) in fines.

The prosecutors accuse Juard and Arya of passing Rp 1.3 billion to then PKS chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq through his aide, Ahmad Fathanah. The bribe was to be given to Luthfi to influence Agriculture Minister Suswono, another senior PKS politician, to raise the national beef import quota. The government has imposed a quota on beef imports to protect local producers, a move widely opposed by importers.

The businessmen have claimed that the money given to Luthfi was not a bribe but charity, but the prosecutors said that the claim was not supported by evidence and testimonies from the witnesses in the case.

The prosecutors alleged that the Rp 1.3 billion was only the first payment of a total of Rp 40 billion of '€œcommitment fee'€ the defendants promised to Luthfi should he manage to convince Suswono to raise the quota.

Luthfi allegedly arranged a meeting attended by Suswono and PT Indoguna Utama president director Maria Elizabeth LIman in Medan, North Sumatra, to coax the minister to raise the quota under the pretext the country was facing a shortage of beef.

Maria has also been named a suspect in the case. Meanwhile, Luthfi and Fathanah will face trial soon as the KPK investigators have completed their case dossiers, which will be submitted to the Jakarta Corruption Court this week.

The beef graft scandal began when the KPK investigators arrested Fathanah in a hotel room after receiving Rp 1 billion from Juard and Arya. Fathanah is known to be a close friend of Luthfi. They both studied at the same universities in Jakarta and Saudi Arabia and have been business partners.

The scandal has hit the Islamic party hard, with many of its politicians now under the KPK scrutiny for their alleged roles in the case. The KPK has questioned PKS chief patron Hilmi Aminuddin and current chairman Anis Matta in
connection to the case.

The PKS has stood behind their leaders, saying the charges leveled against them were orchestrated by its political rivals. The KPK, however, insisted that it has a strong case against Luthfi, claiming to have photos and records of taped conversations incriminating him and possibly other PKS politicians.

During the trial of Juard and Arya, several witnesses told the court that PT Indoguna had promised to donate money to PKS if the party could help it secure a licence to import more beef.

The party had denied the accusation, saying that it did not accept donations from outsiders and could collect enough money from its own members to fund its operations.

KPK investigators has confiscated five cars parked outside the PKS headquarters in Jakarta, which were believed to be owned by Luthfi using illegal money. The PKS initially resisted the KPK attempt to seize the cars, claiming that some of them belonged to the party.