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Slashed sentences for graft convicts ‘an alarming trend’, activists say
Recent court rulings overturning or reducing otherwise hefty penalties for corruption have weakened the antigraft movement, which has languished since efforts to dismantle the authority of the Corruption Eradication Commission.
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Graft defendant Djoko Tjandra poses during a verdict hearing at the Jakarta Corruption Court on April 5. (Antara/Hafidz Mubarak A.)
I
ndonesia’s flagging anticorruption fight faces even more hurdles, with the reduction of sentences for graft convicts becoming common practice in the nation’s higher courts.
Recent court rulings overturning or reducing otherwise hefty penalties for corruption have weakened the already beleaguered antigraft movement, which also suffers from opaque state and business conduct under the veil of COVID-19 restrictions.
In late July, a panel of judges at the Jakarta High Court ruled to cut runaway graft convict Djoko Tjandra’s prison sentence from four and a half to three and a half years.
The Supreme Court sentenced Djoko to two years in prison and ordered him to pay Rp 546 billion (US$37.86 million) in restitution in 2009 for his involvement in the high-profile Bank Bali corruption case, but he fled to Papua New Guinea a day before the court issued its ruling. The police caught him in Malaysia and brought him back to the country last year.
Djoko’s court ruling was decided after a Jakarta High Court panel of judges granted an appeal by disgraced Attorney General’s Office (AGO) prosecutor Pinangki Sirna Malasari on the basis of gender, setting a new precedent for the country’s judicial bodies and shaving six years off her initial prison sentence.
The Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced her to 10 years in prison in February, heftier than the four-year prison term demanded by prosecutors. She was found guilty of accepting $500,000 in bribes from Djoko in exchange for her help in securing an acquittal from the Supreme Court.
Both rulings add to a growing list of cases in which graft defendants received significant sentence cuts in the appeals court, tarnishing the already weakened antigraft movement of a nation known for rife corruption practices.
