JAKARTA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - An Indonesian court has extended the jail term of former central bank governor Burhanuddin Abdullah by six months after rejecting his appeal against a conviction for graft, a judge said on Monday.
Abdullah had lodged an appeal at the Jakarta high court after a corruption court sentenced him to five years in jail last October for making illegal payments to lawmakers.
Madya Suhardja, one of five judges handling the appeal, said Abdullah had a high domestic and international profile in his post.
"A central bank governor is a prestigious position, so he is supposed to give a good example," Suhardja told Reuters, when asked why the judges had extended his sentence.
The court also ordered prosecutors to seize for the state 68.5 million rupiah ($5,829) Abdullah had spent bribing members of parliament, Suhardja said.
Abdullah, whose term as Bank Indonesia governor ended in May 2008, has always denied any wrongdoing.
In a related case, another former central banker, Aulia Pohan, whose daughter is a relative of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono by marriage, is currently on trial for graft.
Pohan was charged last month along with three other central bankers with corruption alleged to have cost the state 100 billion rupiah in losses.
Yudhoyono, who is seeking a second term in office in elections in July, made combatting corruption in one of the world's most graft-prone countries a key platform of his administration.
($1=11,750 rupiah) (Reporting by Telly Nathalia; Editing by Ed Davies and Jerry Norton)