JAKARTA (AFP) — A former governor of Indonesia's central bank was sentenced to five years in jail and a relative of President Susilo Bambang was named a suspect Wednesday in a snowballing corruption scandal.
Burhanuddin Abdullah was convicted in the anti-corruption court of embezzling 10.3 million dollars in bank funds to bribe lawmakers and hire lawyers to defend bank officials facing corruption allegations.
"The defendant has been proved legally and convincingly to have been corrupt and must be sentenced to five years in jail and fined 250 million rupiah," judge Gusrizal told the court.
Abdullah served as Bank Indonesia governor from 2003 until he was replaced earlier this year.
He told reporters as he was being led away by police that he would appeal.
"I'm very disappointed with the decision and will file an appeal... I will never stop pursuing truth and justice," he said.
The scandal has severely damaged the credibility of the central bank but the sentence was less than the eight years' jail and 500-million-rupiah fine demanded by the prosecution.
Anti-corruption campaigners said that while Abdullah may not have been the leader of the cash-for-favours ring his seniority in a core institution warranted a stiffer penalty.
"He should have received a minimum of 10 years because the maximum under Indonesian law is 20 years," Indonesia Corruption Watch researcher Febri Diansyah said.
"I think the sentence is a failure because his position in the central bank ... warrants the maximum sentence."
Meanwhile the scandal deepened with investigators announcing that Aulia Pohan, the father-in-law of Yudhoyono's son Agus Harimurti, has been declared a suspect along with three other former deputy bank governors.
Yudhoyono said he was personally saddened by the allegations against Pohan but the law had to be carried out.
"If Aulia Pohan and others are seen to have done wrong in this context, of course the law has to be enforced. I'm not allowed to intervene," he told reporters.
Two other bank officials and two MPs are also on trial over the scandal, which is seen as a litmus test for Yudhoyono's self-declared war on corruption ahead of elections next year.
The Corruption Eradication Commission, which is investigating the case, said inquiries were continuing.
"We named the suspects based on our findings from previous trials. We will probe others who are linked to the case," commission chairman Antasari Azhar said.
Prosecutors said that the former central bank officials used 31.5 billion rupiah of the embezzled money to bribe lawmakers who were deliberating a bill on the bank's operations.
The remaining 68.5 billion rupiah was used to hire lawyers to defend senior bank officials accused of embezzling billions of dollars in liquidity funds that went missing during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
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