REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Regent of Empat Lawang Budi Antoni Aljufri and his wife Suzanna face on Wednesday their first investigations by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) after their arrested earlier this week.
Budi was charged with bribing former Constitutional Court Akil Muchtar to win his second term as regent of the district in 2013.
His wife was implicated for providing and transferring Rp15.5 billion for Akil Muchtar via the account of a Muhtar Effendy, Akil's right hand man.
Akil himself is serving a life sentence for graft and money laundering in June last year.
"BAA (Budi Antoni Aljufri) and SBA (Suzanna Budi Antoni) are investigated as suspects," KPK's chief spokesman Priharsa Nugraha said here on Wednesday.
The two were named suspects on June 25, 2015 and were arrested on Monday in separate places in Jakarta.
In the court investigation of Akil, Budi and Suzanna were said to have bribed Akil with Rp10 billion and US$500,000 or a total of Rp15.5 billion through Muhtar Ependy, who has also been named a suspect.
In July 2013, Budi Antoni Aljufri, who was an incumbent disputed the election result that gave the victory to rival pair of Joncik Muhammad and Ali Hakimi.
Akil Mochtar, who presided over the panel of judges investigating the election dispute decided in favor of Budi.
In the process of court investigation later it was known that Budi asked his wife Susanna to transfer Rp10 billion for Akil. Susanna gave the money to Muhtar Ependy, who then put the money at the Jakarta branch of West Kalimantan Regional Development Bank on behalf of Iwan Sutaryadi, the deputy head of the bank branch.
Later Suzanna came again to the bank office handing over US$500,000 more to Iwan Sutaryadi to keep it for Akil.
After the deals were completed on July 31 , 2013 , the Constitutional Court announced its decision in favor of the pair of Budi and Syahril Hanafiah cancelling the result of the regional election by the district election commission.
Budi denied involvement of his wife, but the bank officials confirmed that Susance handed over the money.
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