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Hadi Poernomo's pretrial hearing postponed to April 13
The South Jakarta District Court has decided to delay the pretrial hearing for graft suspect and former Supreme Audit Agency head Hadi Poernomo to April 13 following a postponement request submitted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)
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he South Jakarta District Court has decided to delay the pretrial hearing for graft suspect and former Supreme Audit Agency head Hadi Poernomo to April 13 following a postponement request submitted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
'The defendant did not show up and sent a letter requesting a postponement for two weeks,' the court judge, Baktar Jubri Nasution, said as quoted by Antara on Monday.
In the letter, he said the KPK claimed to have received the court's summons just a week before the scheduled hearing date, leaving the commission little time to prepare. There were also scheduling conflicts, as the anti-graft body was slated to attend three pretrial hearings on Monday.
In the hearing, which was held without the presence of the commission's lawyer team, Hadi's lawyer, Maqdir Ismail, requested the judge reduce the hearing postponement. His request was rejected.
'The consideration is that Friday, April 3, is a holiday. To ensure the summons is valid and no more excuses are made for the defendant not to attend the hearing, we delayed it for two weeks. If the defendant fails to show up again, we will not delay again. We will proceed to the next step,' said Baktar, adding that the court would summon the KPK to attend the pretrial hearing on April 13, with a warning.
Maqdir admonished the anti-graft body's decision not to attend the pretrial session.
'The KPK should have attended the hearing [...] Don't just send a letter,' said Maqdir.
In April 2014, the KPK named Hadi a graft suspect for allegedly abusing his authority to approve a Rp 5.7 trillion (US$438.9 million) tax objection requested by Indonesia's largest private bank, Bank Central Asia (BCA), for the tax year of 1999.
Hadi's lawyer team said that based on articles 25 and 26 of Law No.99/1994 on taxation procedures and general rules, the KPK had no authority to investigate the former tax director general's authorities.
Maqdir said that based on Article 14 of Law No.39/1999, the taxation directorate general's decision to approve the bank's tax objection fell outside the bounds of the category of corruption crimes. (ebf)(+++)
