Bilhuda Haryanto, Jakarta – The nation's most prominent antigraft watchdog, Indonesia Corruption Watch, says capital punishment is not the way to go in preventing corruption, pushing lifetime imprisonment and asset seizure instead.

The ICW comments come after the head of the Constitutional Court, Mahfud MD, said over the weekend that Indonesia should take a leaf out of China's book and introduce the death penalty for corruption. Mahfud said capital punishment should be included in the draft law on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

But Adnan Topan Husodo, ICW deputy coordinator, said applying the death penalty would only complicate matters because it would go against international conventions on human rights. "When we talk about what penalty to hand down, number one is life imprisonment and number two is seizing the largest part of [violators'] assets," he said on Monday.

Under the current laws, the maximum sentence for someone who gives a bribe is five years. The maximum sentence for accepting a bribe is life in prison.

Mahfud had dismissed concerns about the reaction to introducing capital punishment for corruption. "The fact is that it has gone down well in China and has never been protested by the people [there]. In China, it has reduced the instances of corruption," he said on Saturday.

But the ICW's deputy chairman, Emerson Yuntho, said regardless of the maximum penalty allowed by law, a better system of law enforcement should be the first priority for the government in the addressing corruption.

Capital punishment for corruption has already been introduced in the amended 1999 Anti-Corruption Law, but that law refers specifically to graft committed under special circumstances, such as an economic crisis or national disaster. No corruption case under these special circumstances has ever been brought to court.

The ICW has released data showing that as much as 54.8 percent of defendants facing charges of corruption in regular courts – district or municipal courts, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court – ended up walking free.

Of those who were convicted, 8 out of 10 received sentences of less than the maximum. The average sentence was 12 to 13 months.

The longest sentence ever handed down in a corruption case is 20 years. That was the sentence given in 2008 to former senior prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan, who was caught taking $660,000 in bribes from businesswoman Artalyta Suryani.