Jakarta. Annas Maamun, the suspended governor of Sumatra’s Riau province, will file an appeal against a six-year sentence and Rp 200 million ($15,040) fine handed down by a court on Wednesday in a forestry graft case.
Sira Prayuna, Annas’s lawyer, said the sentence was unfair because one of the indictments, that his client took a bribe of Rp 3 billion in addition to the Rp 2 billion he was initially busted with last September, was never proven in court.
In its ruling on Wednesday, the Bandung Anticorruption Court found Annas guilty of taking Rp 2 billion from businessmen Edison Marudut and Gulat Medali Emas Manurung, in exchange for allowing the conversion of more than 2,400 hectares (not 140, as initially reported) of ostensibly protected forests in three Riau districts – Kuantan Sengingi, Rokan Hilir and Bengkalis – into oil palm plantations.
Annas and Gulat were busted red-handed transacting the bribe at a house in East Jakarta last September by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Gulat has been charged in the same case but Edison is still being treated as a witness for now.
Judge Barita Lumban Gaol added that a further indictment alleging that Annas received another kickback worth Rp 3 billion from a third businessman, Surya Darmadi, was not proven by the KPK prosecutors.
Despite this, Judge Barita handed Annas the maximum sentence sought by the prosecutors because he held the position of a member of the civil service and was a public official. “The defendant as a regional head should have given a good example before the public,” Barita said as he read out the verdict.
However, he noted that he took into account the suspended governor’s age, 74, in deliberating the mitigating factors of the case.
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