Indonesian House Speaker Setya Novanto dodged corruption allegations yet again recently, this time by by winning a pretrial motion that undid his status as a graft suspect in the huge e-KTP corruption case currently being investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
Though some suspect dirty dealings to be behind his pretrial victory (the judge, for one, has a questionable judicial track record), Setya’s win was expected by many, especially since he has already been accused several times of corruption in the past but somehow escaped all charges.
Prior to the e-KTP corruption allegation, Setya famously was forced to step down as House speaker in 2015 after he was recorded allegedly misusing President Joko Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s names to try and secure shares for himself in contract re-negotiations with mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia. Setya not only avoided any criminal charges but he was reinstated as house speaker by Golkar last year.
The KPK has nabbed numerous high-profile politicians in the past, with arrests almost always leading to convictions. But despite having sent the likes of former Constitutional Court judge Akil Mochtar, former Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng, and numerous regional heads to jail, the KPK’s record is not quite perfect since there have been a few politicians, like Setya, who have somehow slipped through the cracks.
These are four other Indonesian politicians who have beaten corruption charges, despite seemingly strong evidence piled up against them:
Former Bekasi Mayor Mochtar Muhammad
Mochtar Muhammad, the mayor of Bekasi, West Java, from 2003-2008, was accused of handing out bribes all over the place: IDR1.6 billion for members of the Bekasi City Council, IDR500 million to officials so his city would win the Piala Adipura environment sustainability award, and IDR400 million to Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) auditors to give a satisfactory assessments of his city’s finances.
The public was shocked, then, when the Corruption Court in the West Java capital of Bandung somehow found him unconditionally innocent in 2011. However, the Supreme Court overturned the Bandung Corruption Court’s decision in March 2012 and sentenced Mochtar to six years in prison.
Incredibly, after being released from prison in June 2015, Mochtar registered to be in the running to be nominated in the 2018 Bekasi mayoral election for his party, the PDI-P.
Former Indramayu Regent MS Syafiuddin
Like Mochtar, MS Syafiuddin, more commonly known as Yance, was also found innocent before being sent to jail upon court appeal. Yance, who was the regent of Indramayu, West Java, between 2000-2010, was accused of marking up land value in a land acquisition project worth IDR42 billion for the regency.
Yance was named a corruption suspect in September 2010. Amazingly, it took almost five years for the Bandung Corruption Court to finally come to a decision in the case, eventually finding Yance innocent in June 2015 (not too surprising given that court’s track record). His celebrations were short lived, though, as the Supreme Court once again overturned the decision and sent Yance to jail for four years in April 2016.
But shadiness and nepotism seems to run in Yance’s family as his wife, Anna Sophanah, ran for her husband’s old job and amazingly won, serving from 2010-2015. This September, Anna was questioned by the KPK for allegedly receiving a car as an unlawful gift while in office.
Former Central Sulawesi Governor HB Paliudju
HB Paliudju served two stints as the governor of Central Sulawesi province. In his second term, from 2006-2011, he was accused of embezzling money from the province’s Regional Budget, costing the state IDR8.2 billion in losses.
The public prosecutors for Paliudju’s case demanded that the former governor be sentenced to nine years in jail as well as a fine totaling the cost of his corruption. Shockingly, the Corruption Court in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu found Paliudju innocent of any corruption and he was free to go.
The prosecutors appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which then sentenced Paliudju to 11 years in prison, two more years than what the prosecutors had originally sought as his punishment.
As a side note, there is indeed a pattern of the Supreme Court overturning controversial decisions by regional corruption courts. We wonder why…
State Intelligence Agency Head Budi Gunawan
This case never even made it to the corruption court. Instead, it’s a case that almost broke the KPK, and one that resulted in the independent anti-graft body replacing all of its leaders.
In January 2015, a few months after Jokowi was appointed, the president nominated Budi Gunawan as the sole candidate for the soon to be vacant National Police chief post. People soon suspected shady political dealings were behind the nomination, as Budi was the aide to former president and Jokowi’s party leader Megawati Soekarnoputri.
A few days after the nomination, the KPK named Budi a corruption suspect over allegations that he owned numerous bank accounts containing billions of rupiah in bribe money. This resulted in heated tensions between the KPK and the police, and soon, four of the five KPK leaders were named suspects for criminal allegations that were dug up from the past.
By February, the South Jakarta District Court granted Budi Gunawan’s pretrial motion to erase his suspect status. The KPK was then ordered to hand over Budi’s case to the Attorney General, who handed it over to the police, who stopped the corruption probe altogether.
None of the KPK’s leaders ever saw any jail time for their alleged crimes, but they were all soon replaced. Meanwhile, Budi Gunawan did not get the National Police chief position due to the controversy and was appointed as State Intelligence Agency (BIN) head in September 2016 to much less fanfare this time.
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