Akbar appeal: All good things come to those who wait?
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
With the future political career of House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung hanging in the balance, a Supreme Court judicial panel is due to announce on Thursday its decision on his appeal against conviction on corruption charges.
Justice Paulus Effendy Lotulung, who chairs the panel, confirmed on Wednesday that the five-member panel would reconvene on Thursday to further discuss the high-profile graft case.
"We will meet, but it does not mean we will complete our deliberations and announce our decision to the public tomorrow as we may not have enough time to arrive at a conclusion," Paulus told reporters.
The other members of the panel are Parman Suparman, Arbijoto, Muchsin and Abdul Rahman Saleh.
"I'm not going to say a word about the case. I believe that silence is golden. People will find out what our decision is after we announce it," Paulus said.
Pressure was mounting on Wednesday for the justices to finally bring the Akbar case to closure, after what seems to have been an extraordinary delay in a case of such major public importance.
Akbar was originally convicted by the Central Jakarta District Court of involvement in a Rp 40 billion corruption scandal and was sentenced to four years in jail. This was later reduced to three years by the Jakarta High Court. Akbar has remained at liberty since his conviction pending a decision on his appeal.
Several student groups rallied outside the Supreme Court building in Central Jakarta on Wednesday demanding that the court send Akbar to jail. Previously, other protesters had demanded that the court acquit Akbar, who is also the Golkar Party chairman.
Supreme Court security guards said they expected more demonstrations on Thursday.
Akbar was found guilty of misusing State Logistics Agency (Bulog) funds intended for the food-for-the-poor program when he was the minister/state secretary in 1999.
The inordinate delay in the deciding of Akbar's case -- his appeal was filed in the middle of last year -- has sparked widespread speculation of backroom deals and political intrigue marring the judicial process.
Some legal experts have criticized the prosecutors for presenting a weak and poorly drafted indictment against Akbar, and for failing to follow the money trail to its ultimate destination.
The courts throughout failed to look into the question of whether the money ended up in Golkar Party coffers, even though it found that Akbar, who was minister/state secretary under then president B.J. Habibie, received the funds in February 1999, months before Golkar contested that year's general election.
Akbar persistently claimed both in and out of court that he had intended the Rp 40 billion to be used to feed the poor and that he transferred it to the Raudlatul Jannah Foundation for that purpose.
According to the prosecution, this foundation never received the money and, in fact, probably never even existed.
Winfried Simatupang, who was said to be in charge of the phantom project, later claimed he had stashed the Rp 40 billion in cash under his bed.
During the course of the trial, he paid the money back by installment.
The judges, who appeared eager to accept the unlikely tale at face value, sentenced Winfried to three years in prison, far less than the maximum penalty of between 20 years and life imprisonment. The Jakarta High Court later upheld the conviction.
The same court also dismissed appeals by Akbar's two accomplices in the same case.
In deciding an appeal case, the Supreme Court does not decide on the validity of the evidence. Instead, it confines itself to examining whether the two lower courts have properly applied the law, Chief Justice Bagir Manan said.