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.

But Edhy overturned the regulation and allowed exports to resume in 2020, citing the high demand for the commodity in Vietnam as a reason behind the policy U-turn. Edhy’s decision at the time was heavily criticized for risking the depletion of the country’s lobster stock.

But Andi said that the Supreme Court had found Edhy's policy to be “in the spirit of utilizing lobster larvae for the good of the people" instead.

“[Edhy’s regulation] sought to empower fishermen and also to cultivate [lobster larvae], since Indonesian lobsters were big in size,” Andi added.

Edhy, a Gerindra Party politician, was arrested and named a suspect by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in late 2020 for accepting Rp 3.4 billion (US$238,143) and $100,000 in bribes pertaining to a lobster larvae export permit.

He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison by the Jakarta Corruption Court in July of last year. The court also stripped Edhy of his right to run for public office in the next three years after he served the jail sentence. The Jakarta High Court increased his jail sentence to nine years in November of last year but maintained the three-year ban on running for public office.

Antigraft watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) immediately slammed the Supreme Court’s decision, calling the rationale for Edhy’s sentence reduction “absurd”.

“If he had truly performed well [during his time as a minister] and given hope to the public, he would not have been a graft convict. But [Edhy] in fact took advantage of his position to profit from it illegally,” Kurnia Ramadhana of the ICW said on Thursday.

Kurnia criticized the Supreme Court bench for ignoring a Criminal Code provision stipulating that an abuse of power by a public official was among incriminating factors that warranted a heavier sentence.

Kurnia feared that Edhy’s reduced sentence would set a bad precedent in the country’s efforts to root out corruption.

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