Former Kutai Kartanegara district head Syaukani Hasan Rais,
who is serving a six-year jail sentence for corruption,
has been released from prison by the Ministry of Justice because of
an alleged "amnesia-like" disease. The ministry rejected suggestions the release
had anything to do with his daughter's candidacy for head of the district.
A mysterious amnesia-like illness afflicting key corruption witness Nunun Nurbaeti Daradjatun appears to be catching.
According to reports, the latest ‘victim’ is the disgraced former district head of Kutai Kartanegara, Syaukani Hasan Rais, who has been released from prison because of the illness.
Untung Sugiono, the director general for penitentiary affairs at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, told TVOne that Syaukani — who is serving a six-year sentence for corruption — has returned home for therapy.
“He is badly ill. He is undergoing memory-loss therapy for amnesia,” Untung said ahead of the opening of a new corruption wing at Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta on Tuesday.
Untung said Syaukani would be in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, for two weeks. “He has to be reintroduced to familiar surroundings,” Untung said.
He declined to comment on whether Syaukani’s sudden bout of amnesia was in any way related to his daughter’s — Rita Widyasari’s — campaign to be the new head of the district.
“Don’t assume that it’s related because everything is related if one wishes it to be,” he said.
Syaukani was suspended from his post in September 2007 over four cases involving Rp 93.2 billion ($10.1 million). In mid-2009, he was sentenced to six years in prison.
Kutai Kartanegara is one of Indonesia’s richest — and most corrupt — districts.
In March last year, the acting district head, Samsuri Aspar, was jailed for four year for corruption involving money earmarked for the poor. The case involving Rp 24.7 billion implicated every single member of the local legislature and all of the subdistrict heads, though most have not been charged.
Rita Widyasari, a Golkar lawmaker, has recently been forced to deny that she features in a sex video shot a decade ago, despite persisting rumors to the contrary.
Nunun, the wife of former National Police deputy chief and current Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker Adang Daradjatun, is accused of distributing 480 travelers’ checks, each worth Rp 50 million ($5,500), to 39 former and sitting members of the House of Representatives banking commission in 2004 in exchange for voting Miranda into the Bank Indonesia post.
Her family claims she has not responded to numerous summons by the Corruption Eradication Commission because she is in Singapore undergoing treatment for an “amnesia-like” disease.
