Indonesia on Tuesday jailed a former central bank governor for corruption after the Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling in a case involving a bank bailout in the late 1990s, a lawyer said. Former Bank Indonesia governor Sjahril Sabirin had complied with a summons and had been taken to Cipinang prison in Jakarta, said Muhammad Assegaf, one of Sabirin's lawyers.
The Supreme Court ruled last week that Sabirin and businessman Djoko Chandra were guilty of graft in the case linked to funds channelled from a central bank bailout fund to a small private lender, Bank Bali, after the Asian financial crisis. The Supreme Court ruling overturned an earlier court decision that had set the defendants free. "The judicial review proved the conduct of the crime of corruption and sentenced (the defendants) to two years in prison," Hatta Ali, a Supreme Court spokesman, said last week.