An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced Setya Novanto, a former parliament speaker to 15 years imprisonment. Novanto was found guilty of receiving 7.3 million dollars in kickbacks for garnering parliamentary support for a 440-million-dollar government project to issue electronic ID cards.
He was also ordered to pay a fine of $36,000 over the 2011 scheme.
According to Reuters, Novanto showed little emotion as the judge read the verdict. After a quick consultation with his legal team, he told the court he would take time to consider whether to appeal against the sentence.
The politician was arrested in November by the country’s anti-corruption commission after evading questioning for weeks, claiming ill health.
Prosecutors had sought a 16-year prison sentence for Novanto and demanded that he be barred from holding public office for five years after release.
Novanto, who had been implicated in five graft scandals since the 1990s but never convicted, was detained by KPKinvestigators in November after repeatedly missing summonses for questioning over the case, saying he needed heart surgery.
Source: Reuters
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