Indonesian businessman gets 10 years for illegal logging

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

JAKARTA (AFP) — Indonesia's Supreme Court sentenced a fugitive businessman in absentia to 10 years in jail for illegal logging Friday, nine months after he was controversially acquitted by a lower court, a report said.

The court found Adelin Lis guilty of illegally felling vast swathes of trees on Indonesia's Sumatra island, and ordered him to pay a combined 16.3 million dollars in fines and restitution, state news agency Antara reported.

Lis was arrested last year while on the run in China and labelled an "environmental destroyer" by the Indonesian embassy there but was acquitted by a lower court in the northern Sumatran city of Medan in November.

He has since disappeared again and is believed to have fled the country.

The acquittal led to howls of...