By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA
Indonesia's Supreme Court has added a further two years to a jail sentence for a disgraced prominent Islamist politician previously convicted of bribery in a meat-import graft case.
The jail sentence for Luthfi Hasan Ishaq - a former President of the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party - was increased from 16 to 18 years on Tuesday, and he was banned from holding public office.
Ishaq had appealed the court’s original verdict after being found guilty of money laundering and corruption.
The Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) praised the court's decision on Tuesday, Deputy Chief Busyro Muqoddas telling the Anadolu Agency that it was happy about the "progressive and protective decision."
It's the right decision as Ishaq abused his position as a House member and the party’s president to influence government policy, added Muqoddas.
Supreme Court Chairman Artidjo Alkostar said Muqoddas had used his electoral power to conduct transactional relationships with businessman to gain a fee.
He underlined the irony of the case, saying that as a people's democratic representative Muqoddas's job was to protect and fight for the rights of cattle farmers, not to procure money from middlemen.
"Transactional relationships between the defendant as a legislator and beef businessmen is political corruption as the defendant is in a position of political power so it is a serious crime," said Artidjo as quoted by Kompas.com.
The former chairman was arrested alongside his close aide Ahmad Fathanah and two directors of the beef-import company Indoguna Utama in January last year after KPK had seized Rp 1.3 billion ($113,000) of a total Rp 40 billion promised to Luthfi in exchange for him using his influence at the Prosperous Justice Party-controlled Ministry of Agriculture to raise the country's beef import quota by 8,000 metric tons.
According to the Jakarta Globe, Fathanah rose to infamy after KPK investigators caught him alone in a hotel room with a naked college student, whom the married man reportedly paid Rp 10 million to sleep with, shortly after he received the bribe.
Fathanah has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, while two Indoguna Utama executives, Arya Abdi Effendi and Juard Effendi, were sentenced to 21 months for delivering the initial bribe.
Prior to the case breaking, the Prosperous Justice Party - the country’s biggest Islamist party prior to April elections - was seen as both conservative and clean
After being nicknamed "the cow party" by media, PKS got 6.99 percent of the vote - down 0.87 percent on the previous - in the legislative election.
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