Mega-corruptor escapes justice

Mega-corruptor escapes justice

Abdul Khalik, Jakarta

After a year in limbo, the Attorney General's Office (AGO)
recently received a copy of the Supreme Court's verdict
sentencing graft convict David Nusa Widjaja to eight years in
prison, an official announced on Sunday.

Now that the AGO had the official notification of the verdict,
there would be efforts made to track down and capture David, said
Kemas Yahya Rahman, the spokesman for the AGO.

However, it could be too late, because David, who was
sentenced on July 23, 2003 by the Supreme Court in a multibillion
dollar corruption scam, has apparently fled the country.

David, the former owner of the now-defunct Servitia Bank,
reportedly left shortly after his travel ban expired on July 5,
2003, according to immigration records.

Legal regulations and bureaucratic flaws have been blamed for
the sluggishness in executing the verdict.

According to the law, prosecutors can only execute a court
verdict after they receive an official copy of it from the court.

The prosecutors expect the copy of the verdict to arrive
within a day or two, but in many cases they often come late for
various reasons, such as administrative flaws. In David's case,
for example, the Supreme Court claimed that administrative
shortcomings were the reason for the failure to deliver it in a
timely fashion.

Moegihardjo, who heads the Supreme Court's criminal case
administration division, explained that the problem had arisen
following the replacement of a number of court clerks and other
administrators, including those who were responsible for David's
files.

Whether it was coincidental or not is an open question, but
the bureaucratic mix-up in David's case was certainly compounded
by the order from the prosecutor's office to free David in July
2003, as the Supreme Court did not order the continued detention
of David after he lost his appeal.

David appealed after the West Jakarta District Court sentenced
him to one year in prison for embezzling Rp 1.27 trillion (US$
1.38 billion) in Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) funds
on March 12, 2002. He later appealed to the Jakarta High Court,
but the judges decided to give him four years in prison. He then
appealed to the Supreme Court, but the justices gave him eight
years.

Similar issues of poor timing have also allowed at least three
other mega-corruptors to escape imprisonment, including the cases
of Samadikun Hartono of Modern Bank and two other bankers,
Leonard Tanubrata, the owner of Bank Umum Nasional and Setiawan
Harjono, the owner of Bank Aspac. Samadikun, also left the
country after the Supreme Court sentenced him to four years
imprisonment for misusing Rp 1.7 trillion of BLBI funds.

Rudy Satrio, a criminal law expert from the University of
Indonesia, took issue with the court's explanation of
bureaucracy shortcomings for its failure to send the verdict.

He asserted that it was impossible that such an important
document could be held up for a year merely due to personnel
changes. "The court's administration doesn't depend on one or two
employees. They have a system. There are strong indications that
the delay was intentional," Rudy argued.