Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – The 10-year jail term given to notorious militia leader Eurico Guterres for instigating attacks on pro-independence leaders during East Timor's bloody referendum in August 1999 is the toughest sentence yet to be handed out by Jakarta's human rights courts.

But Guterres, 28, is unlikely to see the inside of a prison. Judges ruled on Wednesday that Guterres would not be jailed while appealing over the verdict a process that could take years.

Guterres is not the first to have been found guilty and then told that if he prefers to sit out his appeal at home rather than in prison, he may.

This year, the parliamentary Speaker and Golkar party head, Akbar Tandjung, was found guilty of diverting 40 billion rupiah of state funds. He was also allowed to walk free pending his appeal.

Central bank governor Sjahril Sabirin held on to his job even after having been convicted of corruption in March. The Supreme Court later overturned the conviction.

Judicial rulings in which corruptors and killers are being sentenced but not jailed appear to be part of a growing trend.

"The rulings reflect the judges' special treatment towards these people," says Andi Asrun, of Judicial Watch, who says although the courts now appear to be getting tough on high-profile criminals, the judges still appear to be under either political or financial pressure to allow the defendants to avoid prison cells.

This year, when the attorney-general's office started re-opening corruption cases involving powerful figures such as Akbar, the moves were hailed as signs that President Megawati Sukarnoputri's government was keeping to earlier promises of stamping out corruption.

But now the judges appear to have come up with a typically Indonesian solution, where no one loses out.

Mr Asrun said this trend of convicting a defendant but not enforcing the sentence is a new one that has appeared only in the past 18 months. He said it appears to be the result of negotiations between judges and defendants who offered money in exchange for a non-enforced sentence, or between courts and the government.

The government can still claim it is cracking down on corruption, especially by charging high-profile offenders.

But lawyers agree that other factors, outside the evidence presented in court, are guiding the judges to make such rulings.

Lawyer Frans Winata said of Guterres: "This is a sensitive national issue, because as he has said, he [Guterres] is the victim of the military .... So perhaps the courts don't have the courage to enforce the sentence. Or perhaps the central courts are not quite sure if these people are guilty, so they don't want them to serve straight away," he said.

Mr Winata said if Guterres' appeal to either the High Court or the Supreme Court is successful, the human rights tribunal may be overturned. This also means courts may hand out convictions if under political pressure to charge more people for the East Timor atrocities, knowing that another court could overturn the initial ruling, he said.