Indonesian legend Taufik Hidayat admitted he acted as a middle man in a bribery case involving Indonesia’s former Youth & Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi.
Imam, who served as minister from 2014-2019, is implicated of receiving bribes amounting to RM3.64 million in addition to additional offers worth RM2.5 million from officials from the Indonesian Sports Council.
The Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is leading the indictment against Imam, and the case took a shocking turn when Taufik admitted to giving just over RM300,000 to Imam’s personal assistant Miftahul Ulum in January 2018.
“I was asked to help through a phone call. I agreed to help, but I did not tell Imam that I had given the money to Ulum,” said Taufik during a court hearing last Wednesday, according to Antara news agency.
According to the KPK charges, the money came from Tommy Suhartanto, the director of a national sports programme that was abolished in 2018.
Tommy had asked an official of that sports programme to prepare the money, before it exchanged hands with another official who gave it to Taufik, who was then the deputy programme head from 2016-2017.
Tommy had prior to this testified to the court he had given the former Olympics gold medalist and world champion RM242,000 for his help in a 2017 bribery case involving a publishing budget for the Asian Games in 2018.
The former shuttler however denied receiving any money from Tommy.
The KPK said prosecutors will investigate further on Taufik’s claims by corroborating his statement with other witnesses.