Businessman may be jailed for fraud

Businessman may be jailed for fraud

JAKARTA (JP): A prosecutor urged the South Jakarta District
Court yesterday to sentence a 45-year-old businessman to six
years imprisonment and a fine of Rp 30 million ($13,636) for his
alleged involvement in corruption.

Prosecutor Uri Hasan Basri told Presiding Judge Doris A.A.
Taulo that Ronaldo Martinez had engaged in corrupt practices at
the City Police Headquarters which had caused losses to the state
of some Rp 1.7 billion.

He said the accused had violated Article 1 of Anti-Corruption
Law No. 3, issued in 1971, as well as Article 55 of the Criminal
Code.

The maximum sentence for someone convicted of an offense under
the Anti-Corruption Law is 20 years imprisonment and a fine of Rp
30 million.

The prosecutor said that in October 1991 Martinez reached an
agreement with four officers of the City Police regarding the
management of rice allocation for police personnel.

The four officers are currently being tried separately over
the same scheme.

Under the agreement the four officers entrusted the management
of the police's rice allocation to Martinez, allowing him to use
part of the rice stock and return it whenever the distribution
date was approaching.

4,776 tons

In the period between October 1991 and February 1993 Martinez
and the four officers managed to remove 4,776 tons of rice from
the police warehouse.

To facilitate the operation Martinez allegedly paid bribes
amounting to Rp 214 million to the four officers.

The rice returned to the stock by Martinez was reportedly of
poorer quality than that taken.

"What Martinez did caused financial losses totaling over Rp
1.7 billion," the prosecutor said.

He added that the accused's illicit operation had also been in
violation of National Police Decree No. T/269/1990, which
regulates the distribution of police rice stocks. (29)