Puteh well, behind bars in Salemba Penitentiary
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Prosecutors finally managed to put graft convict Abdullah Puteh behind bars on Thursday after receiving a letter of examination from a hospital stating the Aceh governor was fit and well after all.
Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors picked up Puteh from MH Thamrin Hospital, where he had been treated for a heart condition, and delivered the prisoner to the Salemba Penitentiary to serve his jail term.
Found guilty of embezzling money spent in the 2001 purchase of a Russian-made MI-2 helicopter, which caused Rp 3.6 billion (US$400,800) in losses to the state, Puteh was sentenced to 10 years' jail by the Anticorruption Court.
He was also ordered to pay Rp 500 million in fines and Rp 1 billion in compensation to the government.
KPK prosecutor Khaidir Kamli said the move to jail Puteh was taken after the commission received health examination results from the Harapan Kita Hospital clearly stating that Puteh did not have to be hospitalized.
The KPK requested a second opinion from the hospital, which it compared with an earlier letter produced by a team of doctors at the MH Thamrin Hospital, led by Asnath Savitri, stating that Puteh needed intensive hospital treatment due to his severe heart condition.
It was this letter that Puteh and his lawyers used as an excuse to stop prosecutors from taking Puteh from the hospital on Tuesday, which should have been his first day in prison.
"There is a defection in one of (Puteh's) coronary veins, but there is no need for any invasive intervention," Khaidir said.
A team of doctors from the Harapan Kita hospital, comprising of six doctors led by cardiologist Otte J. Rachman, had been examining dossiers on Puteh's condition during treatment at the MH Thamrin Hospital.
Lawyer OC Kaligis representing Puteh said he objected to the execution, claiming the verdict was still not legally binding as his client was on appeal to the Supreme Court.
"We object to this arbitrary execution. My client will not sign the execution letter," Kaligis said while accompanying his client.
Clad in a white T-shirt and black trousers, Puteh, a close aide of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, remained silent despite the flood of questions asked by dozens of journalists who packed the MH Thamrin hospital.
Kaligis said he would inform the Supreme Court that his client had been jailed.
Thursday night will be the first night Puteh spends in jail for many months after a court allowed him to serve city arrest in Jakarta after his lawyers claimed he was too sick for prison.
The case came back into the spotlight in the past two weeks when 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.
Puteh was the first high-level official to be found guilty for corruption in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's term, after he launched a widespread antigraft campaign when he took office in November last year.