Witness eluded authorities in several
different countries while pleading memory loss
Nunun
Nubaeti, the key witness in an Indonesian bribery case that has seen 28
lawmakers jailed so far, was handed a two-and-a-half year jail sentence and a
fine equivalent to US$16,350, both characterized as a slap on the wrist, in a
Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court session yesterday.
Nunun
immediately asked to be taken to a hospital, saying she was “shocked and
sickened.”
The
case in which Nunun, a prominent Jakarta socialite and wife of a national
deputy police chief, was jailed is significant in that the individual who gave
her a bagful of 480 travelers’ checks to be delivered to the jailed lawmakers,
has never been identified. It is also significant because Nunun led authorities
on a multi-country chase after having fled for Singapore to avoid arrest,
claiming she had to seek medical treatment for a strange malady that made her
forget everything.
The
anti-corruption judges ruled that Nunun had channeled Rp20.8 billion (US$2.26
million) worth of checks in bribes to lawmakers to support the election of
Miranda Swaray Goeltom as the senior deputy governor of Bank Indonesia. Goeltom
was recently named as a suspect in the case.
What
nobody seems to want to ask is why the unnamed parties wanted Goeltom
reappointed so fervently. The travelers’ checks were purchased by a company
called First Mujur, a palm oil company, from Artha Graha Bank. Both First Mujur
and Artha Graha are subsidiaries of the Artha Graha Group, owned by a Sumatran
businessman named Tommy Winata. The checks, according to testimony, were
delivered in paper sacks to some lawmakers, color-coded envelopes to others.
Officials from First Mujur told officials of Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication
Commission (KPK) they had no idea how the checks had ended up the hands of the
lawmakers.
They
had been purchased to finance a palm oil plantation project, they said.
Although the names of the bank and the palm oil company have been made public,
Winata’s name was never mentioned in the trial, and it is unlikely that it ever
will be. He is considered too powerful to mess with.
Nunun
was on the run for almost two years. At one point she was thought to be in
Cambodia although no one was sure. Busyro Mugoddas, the chairman of the KPK,
said last October charged that “large powers” had prevented his organization,
perhaps the country’s most incorruptible, from tracking the woman down.
The
businesswoman is the wife of Adang Daradjatun, a prominent Prosperous Justice
Party lawmaker and former Deputy National Police chief, The Prosperous Justice
Party is a key component of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s ruling
Democratic Party coalition. While Nunun was on the run, Daradjatun repeatedly
told reporters he was only a common person who didn’t have the power to protect
his wife or hinder any efforts to bring her home.
“It's
impossible that I, a common person, can organize security [for Nunun],”
Daradjatun claimed, saying he had no idea what Mugoddas was talking about. A
member of the House of Representatives Commission III, which oversees legal
affairs, he said he was not present during the hearing in which Mugoddas made
the statement, to avoid conflict of interest.
Nunun
was hardly alone in her flight. A long series of Indonesian politicians and
public figures have decamped from Jakarta for Singapore, pleading illness,
although the memory loss syndrome has become a running joke in Jakarta.
The
most publicized was Muhammad Nazaruddin, the former treasurer of the Democratic
Party, who led investigators on a long chase before they tracked him down in
Cartagena, a resort city on the coast of Colombia, last year. Nazaruddin was
sentenced in late April to five years in prison and a fine of just US$22,000
for accepting bribes totaling US$ 514,000. He was not ordered to return the
amount stolen in bribes.
Nazaruddin’s
testimony against top officials of the Democratic Party, including its titular
head, Anas Urbangingrum, has nearly wrecked the party and resulted in tarring
the president’s own name.
“There
was not even one remark about the stunning difference between the total amount
of the bribe Nazarrudin took and the "fine",” a Jakarta-based
expatriate businessman told Asia Sentinel. “Ignoring the ridiculously lean
sentence of five years, stiff in comparison to 99 percent of other KPK cases,
where on earth did the balance of US$ 492,000 go? This is how ALL KPK cases end
up in court. The fine is only symbolic, and a tiny fraction of the total amount
stolen in bribes.”
Police
are still looking for Nazaruddin’s wife, Neneng Sri Wahyuni, who is also
suspected of being involved in a corruption case concerning the 2008
construction of a solar power plant for the Manpower and Transmigration
Ministry. KPK officials said last week that Neneng had been detected in a
“certain country,” which they declined to name, but that she could not be
found. Interpol has been alerted, a KPK official said.
“[She]
has not been found,” spokesman of the commission, Johan Budi, told reporters.
“She was detected as being in a certain country. The problem is, that country
is large.”
Neneng
was the commissioner of Alfindo, the tender winner of the project. Alfindo
subcontracted the work to Sundaya Indonesia, getting benefits and causing the
state a loss worth Rp 2.7 billion ($294,300), prosecutors alleged.
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