Rizky Amelia & Novianti Setuningsih – The person who allegedly managed the shady businesses and bribery schemes of graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin is a woman of surprisingly small stature, with only her eyes visible behind her Islamic dress.

For a brief moment at the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court on Wednesday, even the defendant Nazaruddin was taken aback. The court had to be adjourned momentarily to identify the witness: Yulianis, the finance director of Nazaruddin's Permai Group.

Yulianis said that she would only reveal her face privately to Nazaruddin and the judges, so they left the courtroom. Upon their return, the presiding judge, Dharmawati Ningsih, asked Nazaruddin if he recognized her.

"Yes, she is [Yulianis]. It's just that I didn't recognize her," Nazaruddin said. He smiled at the panel of judges, saying he had never known Yulianis to dress so religiously before.

Yulianis may have been cloaked in religious garb, but there was nothing holy about her job description in Nazaruddin's company.

She admitted to channeling Rp 30 billion ($3.4 million) and $5 million at her boss's instructions to participants of a Democratic Party congress in 2010 which saw the rise of current chairman Anas Urbaningrum.

She also claimed to have provided billions in funds used to bribe lawmakers and other Democratic leaders to ensure Nazaruddin's company was awarded lucrative government projects.

During her time as Nazaruddin's director, she repeatedly tried to resign, she said. It was not out of guilt for what she was doing, however; it was because of the inhumane way Nazaruddin treated his employees.

"Nazaruddin once got so angry he hit my friend Minarsih," Yulianis said. She left the Permai Group in November 2009, only to return two months later. "I returned after Nazaruddin threatened me," she said.

For Nazaruddin, Yulianis was seemingly indispensable, displaying knowledge of the details of many of his shady dealings. When Nazaruddin fled the country to Singapore last year, he asked her to follow suit even though she had already been slapped with a travel ban.

"Nazaruddin instructed me to make a fake passport and identification card," she told the court. "He wanted to hide me in Singapore because I know everything. I know too much."

Nazaruddin was targeted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) shortly after the antigraft body arrested another of Nazaruddin's employees, Mindo Rosalina Manulang, on April 21 of last year.

Rosalina and businessman Muhammad El Idris were caught red-handed after providing bribe money to Sports Ministry secretary Wafid Muharam. The three are now in jail.

"'Rosa was out playing, Yul. Go and fix her room,'" Yulianis quoted Nazaruddin as saying to her shortly after they heard that Rosalina had been arrested by the KPK. Nazaruddin, she said, instructed her and other employees to destroy all incriminating evidence that could lead to him.

"We all worked frantically until 3 o'clock in the morning," she said, adding that she had emptied Rosalina's safe box. "When KPK agents came raiding our office, we pretended to be doing the taxes," she said.

The KPK did manage to confiscate some checks and financial records that led back to her boss.