Ex-Indonesian House deputy speaker gets 3.5 yrs in prison for graft

Jakarta, Feb 17 An Indonesian court on Thursday sentenced House of Representatives' former deputy speaker Azis Syamsuddin to 3 and half years in jail for his involvement in a bribery case.

Syamsuddin, a senior politician of the Golkar Party, was found guilty of violating the country's corruption law by giving 3.1 billion rupiahs ($216,000) and $36,000 in bribes to Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) former investigator Stepanus Robin Pattuju and lawyer Maskur Husain in 2020, reports Xinhua news agency.

Syamsuddin did this in a bid to prevent his name and the name of another cadre of the Golkar Party from showing up in a KPK investigation into a graft case in Central Lampung district, Lampung province.

When reading the verdict at the anti corruption court in Jakarta, the chairman of the panel of judges Muhammad Damis said that Syamsuddin shall also pay a fine of 250 million rupiahs as a substitute for another four-month imprisonment should he fail to pay.

Damis also said that Syamsuddin's political right to run for public office will be suspended for four years after serving his sentence.

Syamsuddin was arrested at his residence in South Jakarta by KPK investigators in September last year, and he resigned from his post shortly after his arrest.

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