Former Indonesian bank chief in court on graft charges

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia's former central bank governor appeared in an anti-corruption court Wednesday charged with embezzling 11 million dollars in bank funds.

Burhanuddin Abdullah was arrested in April by the powerful Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) which has launched a series of investigations targeting the central bank, customs and attorney general's offices.

Abdullah is alleged to have taken the bank's money to pay 31.5 billion rupiah to lawmakers deliberating amendments to the central bank law in 2004.

Two other senior bank officials, legal affairs director Oey Hoeng Tiong and communications chief Rusli Simanjuntak, were detained in February as part of the investigation.

Indonesia ranks alongside Russia, Togo and Gambia at 143rd on Transparency International's global corruption perceptions index.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised to stamp out endemic corruption when he was elected in 2004.

But new graft scandals continue to emerge, most recently this month when several senior prosecutors were implicated in a bribery network linked to a fugitive banker suspected of embezzling some three billion dollars, AFP reported. end (*)