Laser skin care treatments, LCD televisions, spring mattresses and air-conditioning will no longer be made available to bribery convict Artalyta Suryani, as well as to two others, following their transfer late on Thursday night from Pondok Bambu Women’s Penitentiary in East Jakarta to the Tangerang Women’s Penitentiary.
The businesswomen, who is serving a five-year jail term for bribing a prosecutor with $660,000, graft convict Darmawati Darehno and convicted drug dealer Limarita, alias Aling, were transferred following the discovery of their luxurious living conditions in prison on Sunday.
The discovery also led to the suspension of the head of Pondok Bambu, Sarju Wibowo. And so the head of the Tangerang prison, perhaps not wanting to go the way of Sarju, is keeping her new wards in check.
When in Pondok Bambu, Artalyta had someone to clean up after her, but Arti Wirastuti told the Jakarta Globe on Friday that “Ayin [Artalyta’s nickname] washed her own clothes today after taking a bath.”
If in Pondok Bambu the long hours were whiled away watching TV on an LCD screen or enjoying karaoke in a special room, in Tangerang, Arti said: “For leisure they normally play board games. Nothing else.”
When members of the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force made a surprise visit to Pondok Bambu on Sunday night, they found Artalyta, not in her jail cell, but enjoying a facial treatment in a special room on the building’s third floor.
At the Tangerang penitentiary, not only will Artalyta no longer be able to have someone come in for her facial treatments, but she won’t be able to receive any visitors at all for a week.
The three convicts’ new residence has a capacity for only 250 inmates but is home to 420 prisoners. Their new rooms are 2-by-2.5 meter jail cells — a far cry from the 64-square-meter room Artalyta reportedly had in Pondok Bambu. It’s probably just as well; they are now expected to keep the cells clean themselves, like any other inmate.
Arti said that the three inmates would stay at the Menara Pavilion — occupied mostly by “troublemakers” and drug convicts — for at least a week for an “orientation plus quarantine session.” They will only be allowed to receive visitors after this quarantine period.
Over the next week or so, Arti said the three inmates would be schooled in what they can expect to receive in terms of chores and what is expected of them in regard to discipline.
All will receive equal treatment, Arti stated. “We aim to always prevent conflicts among inmates,” the warden said, adding that after a week in the “quarantine block,” the three inmates would be transferred to the “normal” towers.
Artalyta and Darmawati will reportedly occupy cells within the Mawar or Melati towers, whereas Aling will be transferred to a tower allocated for drug criminals. Each tower houses 14 jail cells. Each cell — with the exception of those in the Menara Pavilion where inmates are quarantined — is normally occupied by more than two inmates.
Three inmates are normally crammed into the 2-by-2.5 meter jail cells and six inmates into the 3-by-4 cells.
An inmate who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Globe that the three new transferees were welcomed by the other inmates on Friday morning.
“Maybe because there is a bond among us, a kind of kinship,” she said.
The inmate did not comment on whether she had heard of Artalyta or of the pampered lifestyle she had enjoyed at Pondok Bambu Penitentiary.
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The Jakarta Post | Sat, 01/16/2010 12:21 PM | Opinion
JP/Irma Rahmi Damayanti
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