Court asked to continue Pande's trial
Court asked to continue Pande's trial
JAKARTA (JP): Prosecutor Tarwo Hadi Sadjuri asked the South Jakarta District Court on Friday to continue the trial of Pande Lubis, one of the defendants in the high profile Bank Bali corruption scandal.
Pande was the former deputy chairman of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), which has been established to control and manage nationalized and closed banks and debt defaulters.
"I've earlier stated that Pande was one of a number of officials who attended the Feb. 11, 1999 meeting at Hotel Mulia in Central Jakarta, which discussed measures to accelerate Bank Bali's loan disbursement from IBRA," Tarwo told the hearing, presided over by judge I Gede Putra.
He said Pande had violated among others, Article 55 of the Criminal Code, which states that the guilty party is the one who committed the crime, or the one who ordered out the crime, or who was an accomplice in the crime.
"Pande was present in a meeting, where some men had directly or indirectly tried to persuade certain officials to accelerate Bank Bali's loan disbursement from IBRA. I appeal to you (judges) not to halt questioning on defendant Pande Lubis," Tarwo said.
The Feb. 11 meeting was allegedly attended by Central Bank Governor Sjahril Sabirin, then state minister of investment and state enterprises development Tanri Abeng, Pande himself, former Bank Bali deputy chairman Firman Soetjahja, executives of PT Era Giat Prima (EGP) Setya Novanto and Djoko S. Tjandra.
Judge Gede Putra said on Friday that the court would make its decision on the matter on June 22.
The scandal originated from the failure of three private banks -- Bank BDNI, Bank Tiara and Bank Umum Nasional -- to repay a total of Rp 904 billion (US$108.9 million) to Bank Bali, a debt which remained until the three were closed down by the central bank in late 1998 due to poor financial records.
Bank Bali then asked the government for the loan disbursement as it had been put under a restructuring program.
The bank then paid Rp 546 billion to PT EGP as commission to help recoup its Rp 904 billion in interbank loans from closed banks under the supervision of IBRA.
On Monday, businessman Arung Gauk Jarre told the district court that he had "no idea whatsoever" about the commission paid to PT EGP for its assistance in recouping Bank Bali's money.
Arung testified as a witness in the case.
"On June 8, 1999, I received Rp 47.3 billion from Djoko S. Tjandra, which I had requested as a loan. But I had no idea that it was the money from that particular agreement between Bank Bali and PT EGP," Arung told the court on Monday.
"I had asked for the loan to develop my markisa (passion fruit) business in South Sulawesi. It was to be repaid in full six months from June 8 last year."
He added that by August 1999 however, Djoko had written two letters to him, dated Aug. 6 and Aug. 16, requesting an immediate transfer of the money to Bank Bali's escrow account.
"I returned the money by Aug. 18 last year, when I started reading about the scandal in the newspapers and suspected that the money I borrowed could have been linked to the scandal," he said. (ylt)