A former chief executive of Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) has had his latest prison sentence reduced to five years and a co-defendant had his conviction overturned by a specialist corruption court at the Central Jakarta District Court on July 31.
Emirsyah Satar, Garuda's CEO between 2005 and 2014, was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment plus a IDR1 billion rupiah (USD61,500) fine in late June for his part in the corrupt procurement of CRJ1000s and ATR72-600s for the airline. His co-accused, Soetikno Soedarjo, was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. It was Satar's second sentence for corruption offences while running the state-owned airline; he continues to serve out a six-year sentence imposed in 2020 over tainted procurement contracts involving Rolls-Royce engines fitted to Airbus aircraft.
Reports covering this week's re-sentencing did not say why Emirsyah's sentence was cut from eight to five years. However, an admission of responsibility may have influenced the panel of judges. Previously, he had argued the matters were connected with the 2020 charges and were part of that conviction and sentencing, rendering the contemporary hearings a retrial of matters already heard. However, this argument failed to persuade the court in June.
"I admit that I am only an ordinary human being who is not free from mistakes and I am ready to be responsible for my actions," Emirsyah now says, as quoted by the Kompas news site.
Prosecutors allege Emirsyah gave Soetikno a confidential aircraft procurement plan. Soetikno was then a commercial advisor who represented the interests of ATR - Avions de Transport Régional and Bombardier Aerospace, and he allegedly passed those plans along to his clients.
Emirsyah also unilaterally altered the seating capacity in the procurement plan from 70 to 90 seats without running it past the board. Garuda went on to buy ATR72-600s (operated by subsidiary Citilink) and CRJ1000ERs, neither of which were right-sized aircraft for the airline's needs. Garuda went on to incur losses of USD609 million operating the planes.
Soetikno received even better news this week, with the court overturning his conviction and ordering his release from custody. The panel of judges said the prosecutors had not adequately proved that he committed the offences he was charged with.
