Indonesian Lawmaker Sentenced for Graft

The speaker of parliament was convicted Wednesday and sentenced to three years in prison for stealing $4.5 million intended for the poor and using the money in a political campaign.

Akbar Tanjung’s conviction marked one of the few times that an official has been found guilty of such a crime in Indonesia, which is widely viewed as one of the world’s most corrupt countries.

Tanjung, who heads the formerly ruling Golkar Party, denied stealing and said he would appeal. He remains free and continues to hold his leadership positions.

“If someone is convicted, that doesn’t mean that his political career is gone,” he said. “I never committed a crime.”

Critics complained that the three-year prison term was too light. Prosecutors had asked for the minimum sentence of four years provided by law. Tanjung could have received 20 years. But the five-judge panel chose instead to impose an even lower sentence, citing mitigating circumstances, including the return of the money this year by a co-defendant who said he had kept it at home.

Tanjung was found guilty of diverting the money while serving as a Cabinet secretary in 1999. The money was intended for use by a charity group to feed the needy after the Asian economic collapse of the late 1990s.

Amiruddin Zakaria, the presiding judge, said Tanjung had “damaged the government’s credibility, misused an Islamic foundation and caused suffering for the poor.”

Two associates connected with the charity, Dadang Sukandar and Winfried Simatupang, also were found guilty and were sentenced to 18 months in prison each.

Tanjung’s party is the second largest in parliament and part of the coalition supporting President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

The court may have done Megawati a favor. Tanjung could have been a rival to the president in elections scheduled for 2004. With court appeals likely to continue for months or even years, it is unlikely his reputation will recover from the stain of a corruption conviction.

In an interview with Indonesia’s Tempo magazine before the verdict was announced, Zakaria insisted that the judges were not concerned with the politics of the case and that there had been no outside interference.

“I assure you and the public, there’s no intervention from anybody,” he said. “This is truly just.”

A recent survey by Transparency International concluded that Indonesia was perceived as the sixth-most-corrupt nation among more than 150 listed, with Bangladesh labeled the worst offender.

The Indonesian judiciary itself is widely viewed as corrupt, and recent cases have done nothing to dispel that image.

Last month, the high court overturned the graft conviction of former Bank of Indonesia Gov. Syahril Sabirin.

In July, Zakaria was the presiding judge of a panel that sentenced Hutomo Mandala Putra, the son of former President Suharto, to 15 years in prison for masterminding the assassination of a Supreme Court judge who refused a bribe.

The slain judge had been handling the trial of Hutomo, who is widely known as Tommy, on corruption charges.

Rights activists were angered last month when a court acquitted six military and police officers charged with orchestrating some of the worst violence in the former separatist province of East Timor.