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‘No Hanky Panky,’ AGO Says After End To 3 Cases
Rangga Prakoso | December 31, 2011

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DrDez
5:46pm Jan 1, 2012

JR - 100% dependant on what the defendant knows that could implicate others and how much that person is worth (sic)


John Ralph
7:07am Jan 1, 2012

I wonder how much money it cost to drop the charges. Curious as to what are the current rates.

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During 2011, the Attorney General’s Office dropped prosecution of three major corruption cases: that of state coal miner Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam, pulp and paper firm Kiani Kertas and South Kalimantan governor Rudy Arifin.

“The ending of a prosecution case is decided professionally. There is no hanky panky. That is what is important,” Attorney General Basrief Arief said.

Deputy Attorney General for special crimes Andi Nirwanto said that the office wanted to settle all its cases, but noted that legally, cases can be settled either by going to court of being dropped.

“We do not want to suspend cases so as to assure that there is legal certainty,” he said.

Andi said that all three cases that were dropped had been investigated prior to 2011. He said that none of the cases examined this year had been dropped.

In the Kiani case, Basrief said that the investigation found that the state did not suffer losses and appeared to have benefited.

“If [losses] could not be proven, then why shouldn’t we have halted the case?” he asked.

The case was linked to the acquisition of Kiani’s assets, starting in 1999. They were purchased by a private company that borrowed money from state-controlled Bank Mandiri. The authorities, when they announced the dropping in the case in June, said that the loan was repaid in full.

He did provide detail on why the other two cases had been dropped.

The case involving Bukit Asam involved allegation of violations in the lease that had been conducted without a tender.

Two Bukit Asam directors had been named suspects in the case, which was believed to have resulted in Rp 362 billion ($40 million) in losses to the state. The case was dropped in May.

In the case against Rudy related to suspected corruption during his time as the head of the South Kalimantan district of Banjar.

He was suspected of corruption in the compensation paid for land worth Rp 6.4 billion that had been formerly owned by a state paper company. The AGO’s office dropped the case in September.