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Court drops fugitive Djoko Tjandra's case review plea after consecutive no shows
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Graft convict Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra stands trial for his involvement in the Bank Bali graft case in July 2018. (Kompas/Danu Kusworo)
T
he South Jakarta District Court has dropped a case review petition filed by graft fugitive Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra against his guilty conviction after he repeatedly failed to show up for the hearings.
The court announced the decision hours before the National Police brought the fugitive, who had been on the run for 11 years, back to Indonesia following an arrest in Malaysia on Thursday.
Suharno, the court's spokesperson, said that the panel of judges handling the case had issued the ruling on Tuesday and had notified the prosecutors, Djoko and his legal team about the decision.
"The ruling states that the request for a case review from the applicant or convict Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra cannot be accepted and the case dossier will not be forwarded to the Supreme Court," Suharno told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Suharno said the court could not accept the plea as Djoko -- who had filed the request for the case review in early June -- had failed to show up for the hearing for the case review.
Read also: Fugitive Djoko Tjandra skips another hearing, reportedly residing in Malaysia
The court had previously summoned Djoko four times, but he reportedly claimed he could not attend due to poor health.
With his absence, the court said, Djoko had violated Supreme Court Circular No.1/2012 stipulating that case review requests submitted by lawyers without the convict present shall not be accepted.
In 2009, the Supreme Court sentenced Djoko to two years imprisonment and ordered him to pay more than Rp 546 billion (US$54 million) in restitution for his involvement in the high-profile Bank Bali corruption case. However, he fled to Papua New Guinea a day before the court ruling and remained at large for years.
Djoko's lawyers had demanded the case review hearings be conducted online due to what they said was the convict's bad health condition. Prosecutors, however, rejected the demand, citing the abovementioned Supreme Court circular.
Tama S. Langkun, a researcher from Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), applauded the court's decision to drop the case review plea, adding that the convict did not deserve a review as he had escaped to avoid serving his sentence.
"However, the case is not over as the convict has not served his sentence yet," Tama told the Post on Thursday. "We hope that there will be an attempt to catch [Djoko] and force him to fulfill his obligations according to the court's ruling."
