Jakarta – Investigators in Indonesia arrested a lawyer Thursday for allegedly bribing a court official in a bid to overturn the conviction of the governor of Aceh province in a high-profile corruption case.

Tengku Syaifuddin Popon was arrested while handing 250 million rupiah (26,300 dollars) in bribe money to a Jakarta High Court official, said Corruption Eradication Commission investigator Tumpak Panggabean.

The money was found in a bag hidden under the desk of the court official, Syamsu Rizal Ramadhan, who was also arrested along with another unnamed colleague. "Basically they were caught red-handed," Panggabean told AFP, adding that the arrest followed a tip-off.

Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh, who was arrested prior to the December 26 tsunami disaster in his province, was jailed in April and fined 3.8 billion rupiah (400,000 dollars) for his role in marking up the price of a Russian helicopter to line his own pockets.

His corruption trial was viewed as an acid test of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's war on graft.

The Jakarta High Court on Thursday also rejected Puteh's sentence appeal, declaring that his 10-year jail issued by a lower Jakarta court was "warranted."

A judge with the high court, As'adi al Ma'ruf, was quoted by the Detikcom online news as saying he and he colleagues deemed Puteh had "clearly abused" his job by engaging in graft as governor of the resource-rich province.

The 10-year jail term, far below the maximum life sentence carried by the charges but two years more than prosecutors had demanded, was seen as a triumph for the country's newly established anti-corruption court.

Yudhoyono has pledged to intensify the drive against corruption in an effort to lure back the foreign investment needed to boost growth. Scores of current and former legislators at city, district and provincial levels have been dragged to court over corruption. On Tuesday a court in West Sumatra province jailed 13 former councillors for four years for embezzling 800,000 dollars in public funds.