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team from the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) is set to go to North Sumatra to probe recipients of social assistance from the province, the funds of which were allegedly embezzled under Governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho.

The North Sumatra administration is accused of misallocating social assistance funds from 2011 to 2013, channeling the money to several local companies.

Gatot, along with seven other suspects including senior lawyer Otto Cornelis Kaligis, has been detained for attempted bribery related to the social assistance graft case.

Local prosecutors have been unable to pursue the corruption case since the Medan State Administrative Court ordered them to stop the investigation against the administration officials. The case was later forwarded to the AGO.

'€œWe will ask them whether [the companies] really accepted the money,'€ said AGO prosecutor Sarjono Turin.

The AGO will also cooperate with the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to audit the social assistance funds to calculate alleged state losses.

The case started when Ahmad Fuad Lubis, a former financial bureau official of the North Sumatra administration, filed a lawsuit against the administration after it started investigating his involvement in the alleged embezzlement of social assistance funds while he was in office.

Hiring a lawyer from Kaligis'€™ law firm, Fuad challenged the authority of the North Sumatra prosecutor'€™s office to order such an investigation.

On July 7, presiding judge Tripeni Irianto Putro along with judges Amir Fauzi and Dermawan Ginting ruled that the order to investigate Fuad was an abuse of power.