Heru Andriyanto, Jakarta – Allegations that prosecutors leaked sentencing documents during Gayus Tambunan's first trial indicates that the judicial mafia was behind the controversial acquittal in March, an antigraft advocate said on Friday.
"There was a mafia presence behind the trial. A shadowy network helped him escape a conviction," said Zainal Arifin Muchtar, an anticorruption activist and law expert from Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University.
Gayus, a former tax official, was put on trial for embezzlement earlier this year after authorities found billions of rupiah stashed in his bank accounts.
Though he was acquitted by the Tangerang District Court, he was later charged with corruption and bribery after Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, former chief of detectives, alleged that Gayus bribed police officers, judges and lawyers to sway the verdict.
Gayus is currently standing trial at the South Jakarta District Court. He testified last week that he was shown prosecutors' documents, allegedly sent from a fax machine at the Attorney General's Office, before they were read at the Tangerang court.
Gayus said his lawyer in the first trial, Haposan Hutagalung, showed him two versions of prosecutors' recommendations: one demanding a year in jail and the other a year of probation.
He said Haposan asked him for Rp 500 million ($56,000) to bribe prosecutors, including Kamal Sofyan Nasution, the deputy attorney general for general crimes, to pick probation.
But the document that sought a one-year jail sentence was fake, said Marwan Effendy, the deputy attorney general for internal supervision, adding that the ploy was to extort money from Gayus. "Gayus didn't know that the prosecutors planned to seek the probation anyway, so he agreed to pay the Rp 500 million," he said.
Darmono, the acting attorney general, denied that Kamal had anything to do with the document leak, despite Gayus claiming to have bribed him. He said Kamal, now the deputy attorney general for civil and state administrative affairs, would only be questioned about his alleged role in the scandal after 17 other witnesses had been interrogated.
Marwan, who headed a nine-member team that questioned 14 prosecutors implicated in the court leak, said the investigating team was working to identify who leaked the papers.
"I have also ordered an investigation into the number from which the documents were faxed to Haposan, to see whether it really belongs to us or was doctored to make it look as if it came from the AGO's general crimes unit," Marwan said.
Haposan, currently standing trial for bribery, denied the charges and called his former client "a big criminal."
But Marwan said text messages that Haposan sent to Gayus indicated he was involved. Zainal said authorities should not only investigate Haposan, since numerous forces worked to get Gayus acquitted.
He also said the leaking of court documents and other forms of meddling were "common practice" for the judicial mafia. "The real culprits are those inside the law enforcement agencies who cooperated with the defendant and manipulated the trial," Zainal said.
Meanwhile, the inquiry team said a phone operator at the crimes unit, identified only as Masno, had admitted to faxing the documents to the Tangerang Prosecutor's Office, which handled Gayus's trial. However, Marwan said the date on the papers and the date Masno claimed he had faxed them did not match up.
Another suspect accused of interfering with the trial to ensure Gayus's acquittal is veteran prosecution lawyer Cirus Sinaga. He has handled numerous high-profile cases, including the murder trials of top intelligence official Muchdi Purwoprandjono and former antigraft agency chairman Antasari Azhar.
Witnesses said Cirus lobbied to get the Gayus case under his jurisdiction, through the AGO's general crimes unit, by requesting that the police add embezzlement to the initial charges of money laundering and corruption filed against the former tax official. Cirus told the investigating team he did not leak the prosecution documents to Haposan, sources from the AGO said.