Former councillors guilty of graft

Suherjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang

Amid the ongoing crackdown on corruption, Semarang District Court on Thursday handed down one-year suspended jail terms to 11 former city councillors found guilty of corruption.

The suspended jail terms mean that each of the former councillors will walk free, but any one of them can be put behind bars for one year should he commit a crime over the course of the next two years, said the district court judicial panel.

The 11 defendants sat on the 45-strong city council between 1994 and 2004. They went on trial last February.

In three separate courtrooms on Thursday, three different judicial panels concluded that the 11 defendants had not inflicted financial losses on the state. However, they agreed that the defendants had conspired to misappropriate state funds.

Initially, the defendants were charged with corruption in connection with the budget process during their early years on the council.

They had incorporated an item in the council budget named the councillors' service allowance account, which amounted to Rp 2.16 billion, while at the time also making allocations for official travel allowances amounting to Rp 1.375 billion and council activities support allowances amounting to Rp 1.115 billion.

Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accused the councillors of manipulating the budget for their own ends.

After the case surfaced, then Central Java Governor Mardiyanto ordered the city councillors to amend the budget so as to ensure that state funds were not misappropriated.

Besides the 11 former Semarang city councillors, other courts in Central Java are currently trying hundreds of former and serving councillors from 18 out of a total of 35 cities/regencies in the province on corruption charges.