http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4490&Itemid=175
Indonesian Socialite Jailed in Massive Bribe Case
Written by Our Correspondent
Wednesday, 09 May 2012
Nunun says it's all unfair
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 the
country 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” have 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, 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 % of other KPK cases), where
on earth did the balance US$ 492,000 go? This is how ALL KPK cases end up in
court: the fine is only symbolical, 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.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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