Puteh refuses imprisonment, claims he has heart problems
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Former Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam governor Abdullah Puteh told prosecutors on Tuesday he was too ill to go to prison as he was still being treated at a Jakarta hospital for a heart disease.
Puteh is the first top bureaucrat to be found guilty of embezzlement since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched an intensive antigraft campaign after his election last year.
After finding him guilty of embezzlement in the 2001 purchase of a Russian-made MI-2 helicopter for the province -- which inflicted losses of Rp 3.6 billion (US$400,800) on the state -- Puteh was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment by the Anticorruption Court.
However, Puteh's lawyers came to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) office early in the day on Tuesday, which was to have been Puteh's first day behind bars, to inform the commission that he was still being treated at the MH Thamrin Hospital in Central Jakarta.
KPK officials said the lawyers had produced a letter from Puteh's doctors explaining his condition.
Puteh's case has been a controversial one. A week after the Anticorruption Court issued its verdict, the Jakarta High Court granted Puteh city arrest status due to his poor health.
In the middle of this month, Puteh's lawyer Tengku Syaifudin Popon was caught red-handed by KPK investigators paying a Rp 250 million bribe to a Jakarta High Court clerk in what appeared to be an attempt to influence the appeals court. The next day the bribery case became headline news when the Jakarta High Court decided to uphold the 10-year prison sentence ruling. The bribery case itself has highlighted the problem of rampant corruption in the country's weak judiciary system, with the Supreme Court saying it will investigate the case.
KPK prosecutor Khaidir Ramli came to see Puteh at 12 p.m. on Tuesday and talked with him for about an hour in his VIP hospital room.
"We can't force him (Puteh) to come with us because of his (weak) condition," Khaidir said.
Khaidir, however, said Puteh looked healthy, although the doctor's letter stated otherwise.
Meanwhile, KPK deputy chairman Tumpak Hatorangan Panggabean said that the commission would seek a second opinion on Puteh's condition from doctors at the Harapan Kita Hospital.
A team of doctors at the MH Thamrin Hospital had previously said that Puteh was suffering from epididymitis (a secondary bacterial infection) and varicocele (a varicose enlargement of the veins of the spermatic cord). He underwent surgery on March 31.
Tumpak said that according to the court ruling, Puteh would be detained at Salemba Penitentiary in Central Jakarta.
The KPK was slated to hold a meeting late on Tuesday to discuss the new development in the case.
Meanwhile, seven members of the Gegana bomb squad were seen guarding the KPK's office on Jl. Veteran III, Central Jakarta, amid recent bomb threats.