Rahardi the first defendant tried in Buloggate II case

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The first defendant in the Bulogate scandal, former acting chief of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), Rahardi Ramelan, was sent to the South Jakarta District Court on Tuesday for corruption charges.

The high-profile case also implicates the House speaker Akbar Tandjung, who is currently in the custody of the Attorney General's Office. Akbar will be tried at the Central Jakarta District Court next Monday.

Rahardi's trial, originally scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., started at about noon because the defendant was late due to "traffic jams," according to prosecutor Kemas Yahya Rahman.

But Rahardi, clad in a gray suit and looking relaxed during the hearing, did not seem to have any intention of slowing down the legal process.

On the other hand his lawyer, OC Kaligis, said that he would not present any exception against the indictment to accelerate the trial.

In fact, the politically-charged Bulogate legal process has been moving at an unusually fast pace.

While some suspect that it is only a maneuver by Golkar to impress the public that the case is being handled seriously by law enforcement.

Which aims at avoiding the formation of a House special committee to investigate the scandal.

Rahardi is accused of authorizing the illegal disbursement of Rp 62.9 billion in non-budgetary Bulog funds during his term as acting chief of the agency between 1998 to 1999.

He faces two charges.

In the first charge, Rahardi, the then-trade minister under former president B.J. Habibie, was responsible for the disbursement of Rp 54.6 billion. While in the second charge, he was accused of abusing his authority by illegally disbursing an additional Rp 8.3 billion.

If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

It was believed that Rp 40 billion of the misappropriated Bulog funds were spent on the Golkar election campaign.

The hearing, which was attended by Rahardi's wife, Tumbu Tri Iswari Astiani, and daughter Dian Kunti Sintorini, was adjourned twice.

The first adjournment came because the team of prosecutors wanted to correct a mistake due to the "mistyping" of an Anticorruption Law article that was imposed on the defendant.

The second took place when the court was adjourned for a lunch break.

According to chief prosecutor Kemas Yahya Rahman, Rahardi disbursed Rp 40 billion after a meeting at the state palace, which was attended by Habibie, Bulog's deputy chief of finance, Ruskandar, coordinating minister of people's welfare and poverty eradication, Haryono Suyono, and Akbar, who was the then- minister/state secretary.

Rahardi said during the meeting that Bulog had funds which could be used for charity. Habibie agreed, and ordered Akbar to supervise it. Under Rahardi's orders, Ruskandar delivered several checks to Akbar on two occasions at the state secretary office in Central Jakarta.

At first, he handed over two checks worth Rp 20 billion on March 1, 1999. Eight checks were then given to Akbar on April 19, 1999 by Ruskandar and Jusnadi Suwarta, Bulog's finance bureau head, according to the indictment.

Akbar claimed that the money was given to Dadang Sukandar, chairman of Raudatul Jannah Foundation for the charitable project.

Winfried Simatupang, the contractor, at first said that he spent the money for 1.6 million food packages for the poor in five Java provinces in 1999. But during questioning at the Attorney General's Office, Winfried claimed that he never spent the fund, and returned the money.

According to the indictment, Rahardi also disbursed a total of Rp 22.9 billion to several parties, including then Presidential Security Guard Commander (Paspampres) Maj.Gen. Suwandi, and then Defense Minister/Military Commander Gen. Wiranto.

Winfried and Sukandar will be tried in the same trial along with Akbar next week.