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Jakarta. Graft convict Gayus Tambunan on Wednesday said he highly appreciated the panel of judges who sentenced him to seven years in jail, far below the prosecution demand of 20 years.   

He also slammed members of the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force for intimidating his wife and breaking promises to help him in the case.  

Gayus added that he suspected that a CIA agent was involved in the reported Guyana passport bearing his photograph.  

“I would like to express my high appreciation to the panel of judges presided over by Albertina Ho who have decided fairly, in contrast to the prosecutors who blindly demanded 20 years for me motivated by revenge,” Gayus told reporters inside the South Jakarta District Court upon hearing the verdict.  

“The verdict is purely based on the indictment, it wasn’t influenced by other parties who have created a public opinion as if I were public enemy number one.”  

Gayus was found guilty of bribing a judge and law enforcers that led to his acquittal last March in his first, controversial trial in Tangerang, in which the prosecution dropped the money laundering and corruption charges and went on only with a minor embezzlement charge unrelated to his huge bank accounts.

The court also convicted him of misusing his authority in accepting tax complaints filed by Sidoarjo-based seafood company PT Surya Alam Tunggal, causing the tax directorate to refund payments and inflict a loss of Rp 570 million to the state.

In addition to the jail term, Gayus was also ordered to pay a fine of Rp 300 million.
 
Gayus didn’t say if he accepted or planned to appeal his conviction.  

“I’m very disappointed with task force members Denny Indrayana, Mas Achmad Santosa and Yunus Husein, who had promised to help me but in the end kept on cornering me,” he said.  

Denny, he said, promised to bring the case to the Corruption Eradication Commission because “he doesn’t trust the National Police headquarters.”  

He also said the task force members forced him to target the Bakrie Group, he said. “I was reported to have met Ical [Aburizal Bakrie] in Bali, which is untrue. Denny tried to force my wife to admit that I met Bakrie. Should she say so when the meeting never happened?” he said.

About his alleged Guyana passport, Gayus said: “According to what John Grice has said, he was a CIA agent and his activities were under the knowledge of the task force.”

John Jerome Grice is an American national on the National Police wanted list for allegedly helping Gayus obtain a Guyanese passport. Authorities have earlier found e-mailed copies of Guyanese passports sent by Grice to Arie Nur Irawan, a member of an alleged passport ring who supposedly took the photo used in one of Gayus’s false documents. 

Brig. Gen. Agung Sabar Santoso, the National Police chief of transnational crimes, said earlier on Wednesday that they found that Gayus’s three sons had fake Guyanese passports as well.  

“There isn’t only a fake Guyanese passport for Gayus and his wife, Milana Aggraeni, but for all three sons as well,” he told reporters.