Prosecutors demanded the death sentence for Indonesia’a sacked former chief graft-buster Antasari Azhar, a senior policeman and the publisher of a newspaper. This demand is related to the assassination of a prominent businessman last year. Antasari Azhar, until recently the chief of Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission, was showing no emotions while prosecutors summed up their case in the South Jakarta District Court.
Mr Antasari’s most animated moments came as special details of alleged sexual liaisons between him and the victim’s beautiful young third wife were brought to the table. He was shaking his head slowly as the claims were read out. He has always denied these sex claims so far. The prosecutors used these accusations in their case to show that bad blood between Mr Antasari and wealthy industrialist Nasrudin Zulkarnaen was behind the latter’s assassination as he returned home from a golf game last March.
Five men have already been jailed for carrying out the murder, but it is only now that the alleged masterminds are facing their moments of truth. Outside the court Mr Antasari, who was arrested soon after the shooting, insisted that “even the evidence from the prosecution’s witnesses did not support its case” against him.
Also in court was former South Jakarta police chief Wiliardi Wizard. He is charged with organising the shooting of Nasrudin after Mr Antasari started to receive SMS threats related to the alleged sexual liaison he had with Mr Nasrudin’s consort, 23-year-old golf caddy Rhani Juliani. Newspaper proprietor Sigid Hario Wibisono is said to have been the go-between who introduced the two men in return for Mr Antasari’s help in having Chief Commissioner Wiliardi promoted to Brigadier-General.
Commissioner Wiliardi is suspended pending the case’s verdict but Mr Antasari as a government appointee (head of the anti-graft body), has already been fired from his position. The case has the potential to rock the highest levels of the Indonesian society and government circles, with critics suggesting the allegations against Mr Antasari are a payback for his pursuit of corrupt officials, police prosecutors and parliamentarians. Was his ordeal a result of a revenge campaign? “I’ll leave that to others to judge,” Mr Antasari said.
