The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has named 10 people suspects and arrested six so far in relation to alleged bribes to members of the Supreme Court (MA), including Judge Sudrajad Dimyati.
In an early morning press conference today, the anti-graft agency said Supreme Court Justice Sudrajad Dimyati, as well as five other MA staff, received bribes so that the MA would uphold an insolvency ruling for a lending cooperative. The six reportedly split the IDR2.2 billion (US$146,407) bribe among themselves, with Sudrajad receiving IDR800 million (US$53,239).
After searching Sudrajad’s office, KPK said they found some of the cash hidden in a hollowed-out English dictionary.
The agency has so far arrested six people, excluding Sudrajad, and has implored the judge to comply with a summons for questioning in the near future.
Among those arrested was Yosep Parera, a lawyer representing the cooperative, who has confessed to bribing the court but claims it was a necessity due to a corrupt judicial system in the country.
“This is the systemic fault in our country, where we have to give out money at every [judicial] level from bottom to top. We are some of the victims,” he told reporters at KPK HQ.
“We will reveal all, and we are ready to face the punishment because that is our commitment to the law. We have low morals, and we are ready to be punished as severely as possible.”
Arguably the biggest judicial corruption bust in the country was that of former Constitutional Court Chief Justice Akil Mochtar, who in 2014 was sentenced to life in prison for receiving bribes in an election dispute case.
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