•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Jakarta. Despite the prosecution pushing for alleged case broker Anggodo Widjojo to be jailed for six years, an antigraft group has slammed it for not taking his alleged attempts to paralyze the Corruption Eradication Commission into account.

“On paper, Anggodo was charged with obstructing justice and attempting to bribe state officials,” Emerson Yuntho, of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said on Tuesday.

“But the real story behind his criminal case is that he has been involved in a conspiracy to paralyze the Corruption Eradication Commission [KPK].”

Emerson was commenting on Monday’s hearing at the Anti-Corruption Court, when the prosecution demanded Anggodo be jailed for six years.

The country was shocked last year when wiretapped conversations between him and officials at  the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office were made public.

The evidence indicated a plot to bring criminal charges against two deputy chairmen at the anti-graft agency.

“According to the official charges, six years is quite tough for him. But he should get a heavier punishment for the plot against the KPK, so we hope the judges will consider this when delivering the verdict,” Emerson said.

Prosecutor Anang Supriyatna urged the court to declare Anggodo guilty of attempting to bribe KPK officials with as much as Rp 5.1 billion ($566,000) in a bid to get it to drop a corruption case against his brother, Anggoro Widjojo, who is still at large.

The prosecutor also recommended  Anggodo be fined Rp 200 million.

Presiding judge Tjokorda Rai gave Anggodo and his lawyers until Aug. 24 to present their defense.

The KPK deputies, Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto, were named suspects in September for abuse of power and extortion, but their case was dropped after the shocking recordings were played by the Constitutional Court.

Prosecutors, however, denied they were lacking evidence against the two deputies and said the termination of the case was based on “sociological reasons,” that is, it would be more harmful than beneficial to bring the matter to court.

While in detention, Anggodo managed to win a court ruling that the termination was unlawful and that the two deputies must stand trial.

Adding controversy to the complicated case, the police and the AGO were unable to meet a court order to present the evidence of alleged phone conversations between a KPK official and a suspected case broker who allegedly channeled Anggodo’s money to the KPK.

The AGO and police claimed to have such recordings, but when Anggodo’s lawyers demanded they be presented in court, police admitted that all they had were data records of phone conversations, not the actual recordings.