AGO vows to put Beddu in prison, lets Amrozi breathe

AGO vows to put Beddu in prison, lets Amrozi breathe

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) said on Wednesday it would
send convicted corruptor and former chief of the State Logistics
Agency (Bulog) Beddu Amang to prison following the Supreme
Court's decision to overturn his appeal.

But they will give convicted Bali bomber Amrozi at least one
more chance to avert death by firing squad.

AGO spokesman Kemas Yahya Rahman said that Beddu would
immediately be sent to prison to serve his two-year sentence once
the prosecutors obtained the copy of the Court's verdict.

"We can do nothing until we obtain the copy from the court.
But I can assure we're going to toss him in the pen despite his
request for a judicial review and/or a presidential pardon,"
Kemas said.

Nevertheless, Kemas said that the AGO would allow Amrozi, the
first convicted man in the Bali bombings, to seek a judicial
review and possibly a presidential pardon after that.

"That is the procedure for a convict on death row," he
explained.

Lawyers M. Assegaf and Mahendradatta, who represent Beddu and
Amrozi respectively, refused to comment on the next legal
measures, claiming that it was impossible to do anything at this
point without certain documents.

"We cannot decide what to do until we obtain a copy of the
verdict instructions," Assegaf explained to reporters.

Mehendradatta, Amrozi's lead lawyer, questioned the verdict --
even though he did not in fact have a copy of it -- which came
only five months after the Denpasar High Court upheld Amrozi's
death sentence.

"Akbar's case was submitted to the Supreme Court before
Amrozi's. Why has the Court issued a verdict for my client so
fast?" he wondered, referring to the corruption case of the House
Speaker Akbar Tandjung, who appealed his three-year sentence to
the Court in March 2003.

Chief Justice Bagir Manan earlier promised that the court
would prioritize the cases of Akbar and the Bali bombings as
mandated by legal regulations in which high-profile cases are to
be processed as fast as possible.

The Supreme Court must hear appeal cases considered to be high
priority within seven months.

It usually takes one week for a copy of a Supreme Court's
verdict to reach the prosecutors via a district court.
Prosecutors have no access to the copy from the Supreme Court,
according to procedures.

A ruling from the Supreme Court is final, meaning that it must
be executed by prosecutors except for verdicts delivering a death
sentence.

On Tuesday, a panel of judges with the Supreme Court and
another panel of judges unanimously dismissed the appeals of
Beddu and Amrozi, respectively.

The AGO was confident that Beddu would not escape justice
because it had not revoked the travel ban slapped on him since he
was declared a suspect in the Bulog case in 2000.

The AGO has been criticized for its failure to bring high
profile corruptors to justice. Among the corruptors who managed
to wiggle their way to freedom are Samadikun Hartono of the now-
defunct Modern Bank, who was sentenced to three years for
misusing Rp 1.69 trillion of the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support
fund, and David Nusa Widjaja of the defunct Servitia Bank, who
was sentenced to one year in jail for absconding with Rp. 1.27
trillion.

Beddu was sentenced to two years for his involvement in a land
swap deal causing some Rp 20 billion (some US$24 million) in
losses that taxpayers must now recoup.

Kemas doubted that the president would pardon Amrozi,
especially after President Megawati Soekarnoputri has rejected
requests for clemency from convicts on death row for crimes
ranging from murder to drug dealing.

In the Indonesian criminal justice system, the proceedings of
an appeal at the Supreme Court are conducted solely by the
appointed judges without the presence of the prosecutors,
defendants or defense lawyers.

The Supreme Court has no obligation to publish their verdicts
publicly.