TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Island focus: Council speakers file pretrial motion
Three out of four West Sulawesi Council speakers that had been named suspects in a graft case centering on the 2016 regional budget filed a pretrial motion against the South and West Sulawesi Prosecutor’s Office challenging their status as suspects
Change Size
T
hree out of four West Sulawesi Council speakers that had been named suspects in a graft case centering on the 2016 regional budget filed a pretrial motion against the South and West Sulawesi Prosecutor’s Office challenging their status as suspects.
The three suspects were Andi Mappangara as the council speaker, and Harun and Munandar Wijaya as deputy speakers. Another suspect, deputy speaker Hamzah Hapati Hasan, opted to follow the legal process as a suspect.
The first pretrial hearing was held at the Makassar District Court on Wednesday. The suspects, through their attorney Muhammad Aliyas Ismail, claimed the investigators at the prosecutor’s office did not have enough evidence to name them suspects, thus invalidating the status.
The four speakers were named suspects earlier this month related to allegations of embezzling Rp 360 billion (US$26.6 million) of the 2016 West Sulawesi regional budget. The funds were allocated as a public aspiration fund.
Meanwhile, Salahuddin, representing the prosecutor’s office, said investigators had found evidence of the suspects’ involvement in the alleged graft of the budget. The hearing will resume on Friday, where the prosecutor will give his response to the court.
