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No Legal Ground For Trial, Gayus Says
Rizky Amelia | January 20, 2012

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High-profile graft convict Gayus Tambunan is arguing that the prosecution’s money-laundering charges in his latest trail amount to double jeopardy.

Gayus cited a decision by the Attorney General’s Office in 2009 to stop a money-laundering investigation against him and change the charges to embezzlement.

The ex-taxman was being investigated by the AGO after the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) discovered billions of rupiah in the disgraced tax examiner’s bank accounts. But his wealth would later turn out to be much larger.

“I cannot be investigated, prosecuted, tried or sentenced for the same crime twice,” Gayus told the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court in his closing arguments on Thursday.

In 2010, Gayus was acquitted by the Tangerang District Court, but it was later revealed that he had bribed a judge, two prosecutors and a number of police officers to ensure that he wasn’t found guilty.

After the case started receiving media attention, Gayus was rearrested for bribing law enforcers and the AGO once again tried him for money laundering.

“It is really shocking for me to be tried for the same case twice. This points to a lack of legal certainty,” Gayus said.

He has already been convicted for bribing law enforcers and falsifying his passport. He is now serving a 14-year jail term.

Prosecutors say it is impossible for the 32-year-old to have amassed his enormous wealth in legal ways and have sought an additional eight-year prison sentence for Gayus.

Law enforcers earlier confiscated an amount worth $27 million in rupiah, US dollar and Singapore dollar bank accounts in his name. Gayus’s homes in Kelapa Gading and Cempaka Mas, both in North Jakarta, were also confiscated.

“Prosecutors can’t prove that my wealth came from acts of crime,” Gayus argued.

On Thursday, Gayus’s lawyer Hotma Sitompul also lashed out at the defunct presidential task force on the eradication of the judicial mafia.

The group, Gayus insists, had earlier offered him protection in exchange for unveiling a network of institutionalized corruption involving brokers and officials at the tax office, police, prosecutors and the courts.

“The defendant used to idolize Denny, seeing him as his guardian angel,” the lawyer said in reference to former task force secretary Denny Indrayana, who is now a deputy justice and human rights minister.

“Denny said he would find out where Gayus got his money. But to this day, there are no developments. Denny is a liar.”

Denny allegedly promised Gayus to investigate companies believed to have bribed him in exchange for tax favors, but that never materialized.