Ex-bankers establish fictitious firms to get govt money: Witnesses

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Former bankers Bambang Sutrisno and Adrian Kiki Ariwan of the now-defunct Bank Surya, who are on trial in absentia, established fictitious companies to obtain money from the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Fund (BLBI), a court heard on Tuesday.

The facts were revealed by nine witnesses, who were "directors" of the nine fictitious companies, at the Central Jakarta District Court.

Each of the nine fictitious companies received Rp 4 billion to Rp 19 billion of the BLBI.

Most of the witnesses presented by chief prosecutor Arnold Angkouw were low-level officers of the Golden Truly group owned by Bambang and Sudwikatmono, who was also president commissioner of the bank and is a cousin of former president Soeharto.

Bank deputy commissioner Bambang and president director Kiki were tried for allegedly misusing Rp 1.9 billion of the BLBI in 1997.

The court has summoned Bambang several times, but he has refused to show up, citing illness. He now resides in Singapore, while prosecutors claimed they did not know Kiki's whereabouts.

Both are charged under the anticorruption law, which carries a penalty of 20 years in jail or life. Under certain circumstances, corruptors can be sentenced to death.

On Tuesday, all of the witnesses told the court that they were forced to sign a document by legal officers of the group.

"I did sign the document, but I had no idea what it was. Pak Sugiyanto ordered me to sign it, otherwise I would have been fired," said witness Medina Sugiarto, referring to a legal officer at the Golden Truly group.

Medina, a bookkeeping employee of the group, was the "director" of PT Bidara Tiwikrama, which obtained Rp 10 billion from Bank Surya.

"I didn't get anything, let alone the money, as I was only paid as an ordinary employee. I didn't even know I was a director of a company," she told the court, which was presided over by Judge Rukmini.

Other witnesses also testified that they signed documents on their supervisor's orders although they did not know the content of the documents. They all said that they did not know they were "directors" until they were summoned by prosecutors for questioning.

One of the witnesses, Yulia Lukman, who is a lecturer at private university Perbanas, testified that she signed the document at Kiki's request.

"He assured me that he would help me with my higher education," said Yulia, whose fictitious company obtained Rp 19 billion from Bank Surya.

Director of credit affairs of Bank Surya Ina Debora admitted that the bank had approved several credit requests that were not normally eligible, under "special instructions" from Kiki and Bambang.

"I knew it was against banking rules, but every time I wanted to resign to express my objection, Pak Kiki said that he would make me a scapegoat. He also threatened that I would be shot dead," she told the court.

She said that all of the money obtained by the fictitious companies went to a "Tomang account" belonging to Bambang. Tomang is the name of a road in West Jakarta where the main office of the Golden Truly group is located.

According to Arnold, both Bambang and Kiki established 103 fictitious companies to obtain BLBI funds for their interests.

The same court sentenced Hendra Rahardja of Bank BHS to life imprisonment and two other defendants to 20 years in jail for misusing Rp 2.6 trillion in BLBI funds. They were also tried in absentia. Hendra is currently in jail in Australia for immigration offenses but the whereabouts of the two other defendants remains unknown.