F

our employees of PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI) who have been named suspects in a corruption case have filed a legal request for a court hearing to challenge their detention by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).

CPI’s legal counsel Todung Mulya Lubis told reporters on Wednesday the four employees, identified only by their initials ER, BAF, W and K, filed the request based on an argument there was no evidence of state losses from the allegedly illegal activities the four had been accused of.

The case revolves around the company’s environmental project, particularly the process of bioremediation at the company’s oil and gas field in Riau. Bioremediation is a method in which metabolic microorganisms are used to remove pollutants for environmental purposes.

The AGO investigated the project from 2003 until 2011 following a report that the project was fictitious. It later confirmed the report and concluded the state had suffered Rp 200 billion (US$23.4 billion) in losses as the project was covered by the government’s cost recovery program.

The AGO, however, later revised its statement, saying that the bioremediation program existed, but had failed to achieve its purpose as proven by the existence of waste in the area where the project was held.

“These requests for preliminary hearings have been taken on the basis that no evidence of state losses related to the project have been presented to support the detention,” said Todung, who is a founder of Jakarta-based law firm Lubis, Santosa & Maramis.

The senior lawyer said the requests for preliminary hearings for ER and BAF were approved by the court on Wednesday, while the legal documents for the other two, W and K, were expected to be approved on Thursday.

The law firm expected the preliminary hearings for the four employees to start in mid-November.

In addition, Todung argued, PT CPI was already being accommodating by providing requested details to support the investigation. Thus, he said, there should have not been any grounds for prosecutors to lengthen the arrest.

“The four are clearly not a flight risk amid long standing ties in their communities and their employer, PT CPI, has been in Indonesia for 88 years,” he said.

Deputy Attorney General Darmono said the prosecutors with the agency would uphold the liability of the arrest.

“If they want to request for preliminary hearings on the case of their employees, it is up to them. It is their right to do so,” he said.

— JP/Amahl S. Azwar