Former Indonesian diplomat jailed for graft

A former Indonesian senior diplomat was found guilty Friday of illegally increasing tariffs on immigration documents and sentenced to 20 months in jail by the Anti-Corruption Court in Jakarta.

Erick Hikmat Setiawan, former consul general in the Malaysian city of Penang, was convicted of corruption after he imposed document service charges against the existing regulations when he took office from February 2004 to October 2005.

"The defendant is proven guilty of continued corruption. The court sentences him to one year and eight months in jail," presiding judge Mansyurdin Chaniago said when reading the verdict.

The sentence is below the prosecution demand of three years in jail.

Erick has illegally increased tariff of a 48-page individual passport to 140 Malaysian ringgits from normally 120 ringgits.

He also offered a "quick passport service" for Indonesians living in Penang at 220 ringgit per person, prosecutors have said.

The defendant has received a fund of 513.3 million rupiah ( around 56,344 U.S. dollars) from the illegal surcharges.

The Penang office has issued 29,615 passports between 2003 and 2005.

Erick said he would appeal against the sentence.

Source: Xinhua