Five businessmen jailed for tax evasion
Five businessmen jailed for tax evasion
JAKARTA (JP): The Central Jakarta District Court has jailed
five businessmen for tax fraud.
The panel of judges said in its verdict on Thursday that the
five had manipulated value-added tax between 1993 and 1995.
Defendant Agus Akbar, 31, director of an import company, was
sentenced to five years and six months in prison and fined Rp 20
million (US$8,368), or five months in jail in lieu of the fine.
He was ordered to pay Rp 2.5 billion (US$10,460) in damages to
the state.
Prosecutor Sudhono Iswahyudi had earlier urged the court to
jail Agus for eight years.
The court said the defendant had masterminded the fraudulent
activities, coordinating the other defendants in selling fake tax
documents.
The other four, who hold senior positions in their respective
companies, were each sentenced to three years jail and fined Rp
10 million respectively. The judges said failure to pay the fine
would result in their jail terms being extended by two and a half
months.
The four were each ordered to pay an additional Rp 500 million
in damages to the state.
The prosecutor had earlier asked for four-year sentences for
the four.
The defendants' lawyers told the court on Nov. 14 that the
indictment was not clear and there was no material evidence
presented before court.
They said they were at a loss to determine what evidence the
prosecutor had based his accusation on.
"None of the 32 witnesses had testified that the defendants
had sold forged tax documents as accused," they said.
The defense team said the prosecutor's arguments were
confusing.
"In his indictment he said that the companies, where the
defendants worked, published 11,640 forged tax documents but in
his statement requesting jail terms for the defendants they said
the number was 6,978," the defense lawyers said.
No forged documents were presented before court, they said.
After discussing the verdict with their clients, the lawyers
told the court they would appeal to the High Court. (05)