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JAKARTA: A disgraced Indonesian prosecutor was sentenced to 20 years' jail Thursday for accepting a 660,000-dollar bribe from a businesswoman to drop a major embezzlement case.
Urip Tri Gunawan's conviction after a brief trial in the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) court is the culmination of a scandal that has transfixed the country and rocked the attorney general's office.
The packed courtroom erupted into applause as Judge Teguh Ariyanto sentenced the prosecutor to 20 years and ordered him to pay a fine of 500 million rupiah (54,500 dollars).
Gunawan looked weak as the judge said he had been proven guilty of receiving bribes in return for burying a 10-year probe against fugitive banking tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim.
"The defendant Urip Tri Gunawan has been proven legally and convincingly to have carried out corruption and has been sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment and fined 500 million rupiah," the judge said.
Observers said the sentence, which was five years more than had been requested by the state, was meant as a clear warning that the government was serious in its ongoing anti-corruption drive.
"It's quite a heavy sentence for a senior prosecutor and it will have a deterrent effect," said Febri Diansyah of Indonesian Corruption Watch.
Ariyanto justified the severity of the sentence, saying Gunawan had "tarnished the image and credibility of the attorney general's office and law enforcement in Indonesia".
"The defendant, as a civil servant, failed to support government efforts to eradicate corruption," the judge said.
Asked whether he understood the verdict, Gunawan said he did, adding, "I will consider filing an appeal."
He scribbled personal notes throughout the trail and even after the judge had read the verdict, including appeals for forgiveness and fragments of prayers, according to witnesses in the courtroom.
Nursalim, who is accused of embezzling three billion dollars in emergency bail-out loans to his bank during the Asian financial crisis in 1998, is on the run and believed to be in Singapore.
Gunawan received the bribe from businesswoman Artalyta Suryani, an associate of the banker who was jailed for five years in July in connection with the case.
Secretly taped telephone conversations between Gunawan and Suryani have been played during their trials, opening a window for the public onto the sinister world of high-level vice in one of the world's most corrupt countries.
The prosecutor and the businesswoman were heard using cute nicknames for each other as they discussed the illegal payments and the investigation into the banking tycoon, one of Indonesia's richest men.
At one point Gunawan, who was sacked from his post after the scandal became public, was heard asking for a "bonus".
He was arrested in March as he emerged from Nursalim's Jakarta home with the agreed bribe of 660,000 dollars, just a day after the attorney general's office had dropped its investigation into the banker, citing a lack of evidence.
The prosecutor denied any wrongdoing, saying the money was a loan to help him start an auto business.
Several other prosecutors have been sacked in connection with the case but the attorney general has refused to stand down or reopen the investigation into Nursalim.
- AFP/yt
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