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)