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Indonesian former minister gets 4-year imprisonment on corruption charges

Xinhua, February 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

Indonesia's anti-corruption court (Tipikor) on Tuesday sentenced a 4-year imprisonment against the nation's former minister Jero Wacik for misusing ministerial operation funds during his service.

The sentence was lower than 9 years demanded by the prosecutor in the previous trial.

"The defendant, Jero Wacik, was proved of convincingly guilty in committing corruption crimes," Sumpeno, the judge that presided over the trial against the former minister said in the Tipikor's court room read out the final verdict on Tuesday afternoon.

He added that the former minister was proved guilty in multiple corruption charges prosecuted by the prosecutor in the previous trials.

Besides the imprisonment, Wacik was also fined some 150 million rupiah (about 11,000 U.S. dollars) or another 3 months imprisonment should he unable to pay the fine.

The judge also added the punishment by obliging the former minister to return more than 5 billion rupiah (about 367,000 U.S. dollars) in compensation to the state coffers within one month after verdict takes into effect.

If he fails to comply with the order, the judge would order prosecutor office to confiscate all of his assets and sell it through an auction. Should the funds resulted from the auction was not enough to pay the compensation, Jero would have to undergo one more year in prison, Sumpeno said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the trial, Jero said that ministers in current administrations could learn and take lessons from his case.

Jero Wacik served ten years in the two five-year administration periods of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that ended in 2014 from 2004. Jero served as tourism minister and energy and mineral resources ministers in those two governmental periods.

He was proved of misusing a total of more than 8 billion rupiah (about 587,200 U.S. Dollars) ministerial operation funds from 2004 to 2009 to finance his personal activities.

He was also proved of ordering his subordinates to collect more money for his operational funds when he served as the energy minister. Endit