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AGO names ex-official at energy ministry new suspect in Timah graft case
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A backhoe loads soil containing tin-bearing sand onto a truck at a mine belonging to metal producer PT Timah in Sungailiat on Bangka Island in Bangka Belitung Islands. (JP/File)
T
he Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has named a new suspect in the high-profile graft case involving publicly listed tin miner PT Timah: former minerals and coal director general Bambang Gatot Ariyono at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.
A team of investigators led by the office of the assistant attorney general for extraordinary crimes (Jampidsus) interrogated Bambang on Tuesday at the AGO headquarters in Jakarta, before concluding that they had enough evidence to name him a suspect.
Bambang, who held office from 2015 to 2020, is accused of “facilitating illegal tin production” in the Timah concession in Bangka Belitung Islands and “manipulating rules” in 2018 and 2019, Jampidsus investigation director Kuntadi said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The naming of Bambang as a suspect brings the total number of suspects in the case to 22. This includes former Timah president director Mochtar Riza Pahlevi Tabrani.
The case revolves around allegations that Timah, the state-owned company that controls more than 90 percent of tin reserves in the country, enabled other companies to mine in Timah’s concession areas in Bangka Belitung from 2015 to 2022, and to profit from this.
Read also: AGO uncovers massive corruption in Indonesia’s tin sector
In another press conference earlier that day, Attorney General ST Burhanuddin said a new estimate from the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP) found state losses of Rp 300 trillion (US$18.5 billion) in the Timah case, making it one of Indonesia’s largest corruption cases.
