Rizky Amelia – A second consecutive witness called by graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin has implicated Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum in wrongdoing, as the defendant continued to shift the focus of his own trial onto Anas.
Ismiyati Saidi, the former head of the party's branch office in Boalemo district, Gorontalo province, told the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court on Monday that Anas bribed his way to the post of party chairman at the Democrat caucus in Bandung in 2010.
"We were asked to sign an agreement that stated that if we voted for [Anas], we would get priority [treatment] and support in district elections," she said.
She also said that prior to the caucus, she and other regional party officials were coached at the Sultan Hotel in Jakarta on how to vote for Anas in the caucus. Each representative also received Rp 15 million ($1,600), Ismiyati said.
Once in Bandung, she went on, Anas accommodated all of his prospective backers at the Topas Galeria Hotel and once again handed out payments of Rp 15 million. Ismiyati said that when the caucus finally began, she received $2,000 for the first round of voting. In the second round, she received $5,000.
She also claimed to have received a new BlackBerry cellphone from Anas's campaign team that was already pre-programmed with Anas's BlackBerry Messenger PIN.
The testimony echoes Nazaruddin's claims that Anas's camp lobbied the regional delegates intensively in the days leading up to the caucus and on voting day.
Nazaruddin, the former Democrat treasurer, previously estimated the total amount spent on getting Anas the chairman's post was Rp 80-100 billion, which he claimed came largely from kickbacks from rigging the tender for the construction of the Rp 1.2 trillion Hambalang sports center in Sentul, Bogor.
Nazaruddin has also accused Anas of complicity in bid-rigging in the contract to build an athletes' village for last year's Southeast Asian Games, which cost Rp 120 billion.
Ismiyati was the second witness called by the defense after Muhajidin Nurhasyim, Nazaruddin's younger brother, was called to the stand last week.
In his testimony, Nurhasyim also implicated Anas in wrongdoing, identifying him as playing a key role in laundering the embezzled funds from the Hambalang and athletes' village projects.
Speaking to reporters before Monday's hearing, Nazaruddin called out Anas on his earlier denial of any involvement in the graft cases.
"He said he should be hung from Monas if he was involved. Well then, he will definitely hang because he took [the money] from the projects," he said. "I can guarantee 100 percent that Anas was the one who arranged the Hambalang project and received the payoff from it. One hundred percent," Nazaruddin added.
Nazaruddin has consistently named Anas and Democrat legislator Angelina Sondakh as complicit in the athletes' village case. Angelina has already been named a suspect by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
At Monday's hearing, Nazaruddin accused I Gede Pasek Suardika, the party's deputy chairman, of also taking a cut from the project.