JAKARTA, June 25 (Reuters) - A former chief executive of

Indonesia's state energy firm Pertamina has been sentenced to

nine years in jail for graft in a case related to a long-term

contract to procure liquefied natural gas from a unit of U.S.

company Cheniere Energy.

The Central Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday found Karen

Agustiawan guilty of improper procurement from the unit Corpus

Christi Liquefaction, a video of the hearing showed. The court

also fined her 500 million rupiah ($30,544).

Her lawyer, Luhut Pangaribuan, told Reuters on Tuesday that

she would appeal the verdict.

Cheniere did not immediately respond to a request for

comment and Corpus Christi could not immediately be reached for

comment. Pertamina said it respected the legal process.

Pertamina's first female CEO, who led the company between

2009 to 2014, Agustiawan was found guilty of improperly signing

a long-term sales and purchase contract with Corpus Christi, a

deal that caused state losses of $113.84 million between 2011 to

2014, according to state news agency Antara.

Pertamina had resold LNG cargoes from Corpus Christi to the

international market at a loss because the market in Indonesia

could not absorb them, local media reports said.

Agustiawan had denied any wrong doing and said she was

following government orders.

Corpus Christi was not a defendant in the case, but the

panel of judges at the court said it had the "responsibility" to

repay the country for the losses, media reported.

In a separate case in 2020, Agustiawan was acquitted by the

Supreme Court when it overturned an eight-year prison sentence

handed by a lower court over her decision for Pertamina to

invest in the Basker Manta Gummy Block in Australia in 2009. The

court had ruled at the time that her business judgment was not a

crime.

($1 = 16,370.0000 rupiah)

(Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo, Bernadette Christina Munthe in

Jakarta;

Additional reporting by Emily Chow in Singapore

Editing by Ed Davies and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)