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South Jakarta district judge rejects Tom Lembong’s pretrial motion
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Former trade minister Thomas Lembong (right) leaves the Attorney General's Office (AGO) building in Jakarta after an interrogation session on Nov. 1, 2024. The AGO named Thomas a suspect in a corruption case pertaining to a sugar import policy during his tenure as trade minister between 2015 and 2016 that allegedly caused Rp 400 billion in state losses. (Antara/Muhammad Ramdan)
T
he sole judge of the South Jakarta District Court has rejected the pretrial motion filed by former trade minister Thomas Lembong, which challenged his arrest by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) late last month as a graft suspect in a sugar import project he authorized years ago.
Judge Tumpanuli Marbun dismissed Thomas’ pretrial motion “in its entirety” on Tuesday, saying that the AGO had found two sufficient pieces of evidence against Thomas to name him a suspect.
“Since the AGO issued an investigation, they have found 29 witnesses and three experts that [corroborated the case against Thomas]. Numerous evidence files have also been confiscated, including a hard disk and several phones,” Tumpanuli said while reading his decision to reject the pretrial motion as reported by kompas.com.
The motion’s dismissal means that the former minister’s status as a graft suspect remains valid.
Thomas previously filed the pretrial motion through his legal advisory team to challenge what he deemed an unfair decision by the AGO to arrest him for alleged embezzlement in 2015.
Read also: Former minister Thomas Lembong arrested in sugar import graft case
The embezzlement reportedly caused Rp 400 billion (US$25.19 million) in state losses after the former minister greenlit the import of 105,000 tonnes of raw sugar through a private company when the country already had a surplus of raw sugar. The AGO claimed it went against prevailing regulations that stipulated that only state-owned enterprises (SOEs) could import the commodity.
