First official locked up for Hambalang graft

JAKARTA. The Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced on Tuesday Deddy Kusdinar, a former official, to six years in prison, the first verdict in the Hambalang sports complex case.

The high-profile case has implicated a minister and politicians from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party.

The court also fined Deddy, former head of financial and internal affairs at the Youth and Sports Ministry, Rp 100 million (US$8,771) or an additional three years in prison.

The panel of judges, led by judge Amin Ismanto, also ordered Deddy to pay Rp 300 million in restitution to the state. If Deddy fails — or is unable — to pay, prosecutors will confiscate his wealth, or add another six years to his sentence.

The sentence was lower than that demanded by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors, who wanted a nine-year sentence and Rp 300 million restitution.

Judge Amin said that Deddy was guilty of violating multiple articles of Law No. 31/1999 on corruption eradication.

Amin stated that Deddy, who authored the Hambalang project’s commitment letter, had arranged kickbacks and abused his position, in a case that had caused Rp 463.66 billion in losses to the state.

During the reading of the verdict, the panel of the judges revealed that Andi “Choel” Zulkarnain Anwar, the younger brother of former youth and sports minister Andi Mallarangeng, was also implicated.

“The defendant [Deddy] facilitated bribes from PT Adhi Karya for Choel, for a fee of 18 percent of the project budget,” judge Anwar, one of the judges, said.

Anwar said that in 2010, Deddy and Wafid Muharam, the ministry’s secretary, had negotiated the fee with Choel. Shortly thereafter, the three men met with officials from PT Adhi Karya, the project developer, at the minister’s office.

The judge said that Paul Nelwan, a representative from PT Adhi Karya, gave the money to Deddy, who then handed it over to Choel at the residence of the minister’s younger brother in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

Anwar added Choel also earmarked PT Global Daya Manunggal to be one of the sub-contractors for PT Adhi Karya and PT Wijaya Karya, the joint-developers of the project. Deddy approved the company to work for the joint-developers.

Monday saw the first trial session of Andi Mallarangeng, who has been in the custody of the KPK since October 2013, in the same case.

During the reading of Andi’s indictment, KPK prosecutors revealed that he had knowledge of the project prior to being inaugurated as youth and sports minister in October 2009.

After reading the verdict, Deddy said he objected to the order to pay Rp 300 million restitution to the state.

“If I had wanted to be corrupt, then I would have taken more than Rp 300 million from a project of this scale,” he added.

Deddy and his team of lawyers had not decided whether they would appeal. “We have to think about it first,” Rudy Alfonso, one of Deddy’s lawyer, said.

Besides Deddy and Andi, the graft case allegedly involved many of the Democratic Party’s politicians, including former chairman Anas Urbaningrum, who is also in the custody of the KPK, and former treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin who was jailed in a different graft case.

The Hambalang sports facility is located in Bogor regency and was designed to be an international-standard sports-training complex. (gda)