A Jakarta court has doubled the prison time for a former chief executive of Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) in the latest instalment of a long-running corruption case involving the procurement of CRJ1000s and ATR72-600s.

Indonesia's Kompas news outlet reports a five-judge panel at the Jakarta High Court increased Emirsyah Satar's five-year sentence to ten years on October 28, 2024. It also raised the accompanying fine from IDR500 million rupiah (USD31,789) to IDR1 billion (USD63,577). Satar must also pay a damages bill of USD86,367,019 within 30 days or serve an additional eight years inside. For good measure, he must also pay court costs.

In late June, Satar received a sentence of eight years for his role in the corrupt aircraft acquisition process. In late July, that sentence was cut to five years on appeal, and his co-defendant had his conviction quashed. However, the Attorney General's Office appealed that decision, resulting in this week's outcome.

This is Satar's second conviction and sentence concerning aircraft acquisition matters. In 2020, a court sentenced him to six years imprisonment for taking kickbacks from Airbus and Rolls-Royce in a separate aircraft acquisition matter. He served as Garuda's CEO between March 2005 and late 2014.

The court heard that Satar gave co-defendant Soetikno Soedarjo, a commercial advisor who was then looking after the interests of ATR - Avions de Transport Régional and Bombardier Aerospace in a confidential aircraft procurement plan. Soetikno allegedly passed those plans along to his clients.

Satar also unilaterally altered the seating capacity in the procurement plan from 70 to 90 seats without running it past the board. Garuda ended up buying ATR72-600s (operated by subsidiary Citilink) and CRJ1000ERs, neither of which were suited to the airline's needs. Garuda went on to sustain losses of almost USD609 million operating the planes.

Satar's attorney told local news outlets this week that he and his client would study the full decision before deciding on the next course of action.