In what looks to be yet another example of the embarrassing levels of corruption within Indonesia’s prisons, it was alleged in a court hearing yesterday that infamous money launderer Tubagus Chaeri Wardana AKA Wawan had, on multiple occasions, paid to be allowed out of Bandung’s Sukamiskin prison to enjoy luxury hotel stays with a female celebrity.
During the trial of former Sukamiskin Prison Warden Wahid Husein, who has been charged with bribery and conspiracy for corruption, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors said that one of the bribes Husein received was IDR63 million (US$4,350) from Wawan so that the convict could leave his cell and spend the night at hotels in Bandung with an unnamed celebrity, under the auspices of a medical emergency.
“There is CCTV footage of them checking in. We will reveal more in court,” KPK prosecutor M Takdir Suhan told Liputan 6.
The court heard that Wawan swapped his cell for the comforts of hotel rooms on at least two occasions in July, one of which was a two-day stay at the Hilton in Bandung.
The prosecutors say that, based on their evidence, Wawan did not spend those nights at the hotel with his wife, South Tangerang Mayor Airin Rachmi Diany (who was reelected in 2016 despite the corruption convictions against her husband and her sister-in-law, former Banten Governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah).
Airin has so far refused to comment on her husband’s alleged infidelity.
Husein was arrested in July, just four months into his job as Sukamiskin’s warden, when KPK officials conducted a raid of the penitentiary and found that convicts were purchasing “luxury cells” complete with amenities including tasteful furniture sets, refrigerators, AC, flat screen TVs, private bathrooms and showers, as well as private keys so they could come and go as they pleased.
Stories about rich prisoners being able to purchase cells with luxury amenities in Indonesia are depressingly familiar. In June of last year, the warden at Cipinang Prison in East Jakarta was also fired after a raid by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) uncovered a drug kingpin living in a “luxury cell” with amenities such as AC and even an aquarium. Even more outrageous examples from the past include a prisoner found to have been allowed out of jail to attend a tennis tournament in Bali and a female bribery convict who got to have maids and beauty treatments in her “palatial” cell that also had a karaoke room.
Despite repeated calls to reform Indonesia’s penal system in light of these cases, not much has been done. And that’s hardly surprising since high-profile politicians, like Deputy Speaker Fahri Hamzah, defended luxury in prison by saying that prisoners “need entertainment too.”
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