Prosecutor urges one year sentence for former mayor
JAKARTA (JP): A prosecutor demanded the West Jakarta District Court on Tuesday sentence former West Jakarta mayor Sutardjianto to one year in jail for abusing his position to profit by Rp 2.6 billion (US$371,428.5) in a corruption case.
"The defendant is guilty of receiving Rp 1 billion (US$ 147 million) from the witness Yanto Lukman," said prosecutor Rusli, in a hearing presided over by Judge Soeparno.
Rusli said the money was given to the defendant in return for all the documents that Yanto needed to legalize his ownership of a 7,080-square-meter plot of land. Yanto obtained the land from Sutardjianto's predecessors.
The 7,080-square-meter plot was part of a disputed 19,800- square-meter plot in North Meruya subdistrict, West Jakarta.
The defendant said in a previous hearing he had collected the remaining Rp 1.6 billion from other owners of the land.
He also said he was entrusted by his predecessor, Sudjoko, to settle a dispute over the 19,800-square-meter plot.
Prosecutor Rusli said Yanto transferred the money, via Bank BCA's Tomang Tol branch in West Jakarta, to the defendant's private account at Bank Pembangunan Daerah Jakarta.
"The witness sent the money in three separate bank transfers in 1996 because he was convinced that the defendant had the authority to issue a certificate for the land," Rusli told those present at the hearing, including social activists supporting the former mayor.
For works
Sutardjianto previously told the court he used the money to cover a shortfall of funds faced by his administration.
Prosecutor Rusli said another witness Kresna, an employee at Bank BCA's Tomang Tol branch office, confirmed the transfer of funds.
He said the defendant had violated article 418 of the Criminal Code by receiving gifts during his tenure as West Jakarta mayor. The article carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail.
He also demanded the defendant be sentenced for violating article 1 the 1971 Anti-Corruption Law. The article carries a maximum life sentence.
The land dispute goes back to 1972, when former governor Ali Sadikin decided the city administration-owned 19,800-meter-square plot of land should be used to build houses on for homeless people in the capital.
For unknown reasons, the scheme was not carried out by Sutardjianto's predecessors who governed West Jakarta from 1988 until 1993. The defendant said he made a decision on the matter, and retained the ownership certificates of the land that had been sold by unknown parties before he took the helm of the West Jakarta administration.
The defendant admitted to the court that during his term he released the land certificates to the owners, who numbered at least 121 people including Yanto Lukman.
Prosecutor Rusli said the defendant did not transfer the funds he collected in this manner to the city administration treasurer, but used them to finance some charities and to serve his own interests.
The prosecutor said the land scam had brought losses to the state totaling Rp 2.6 billion (US$388,000 at the current rate) during the defendant's five year tenure from 1993 to 1997.
Presiding Judge Soeparno adjourned the trial until next Tuesday to hear Sutardjianto's lawyers defense statement. (asa)