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)