Former Surabaya District Court head Rudi Suparmono allegedly accepted at least S$60,000 for his roles in the acquittal of a murder charge against defendant Gregorius Ronald Tannur in a high-profile murder case in the East Java capital city.
he Attorney General’s Office (AGO) named Rudi Suparmono, former head of the Surabaya District Court in East Java, a suspect in a bribery case related to the acquittal of defendant Gregorius Ronald Tannur in a high-profile murder case.
Ronald, son of retired National Awakening Party (PKB) lawmaker Edward Tannur, was charged with assaulting and killing his 29-year-old girlfriend Dini Sera Afrianti in October 2023 following a reported altercation between the two.
But a panel of judges at the Surabaya District Court acquitted him of all charges in July 2024, citing a lack of “any convincing evidence” to convict him of the murder, manslaughter and aggravated assaults charges.
The ruling sparked widespread public backlash and an AGO investigation into to find out if corruption had skewed the lower court’s ruling in Ronald’s favor.
Investigators arrested Rudi, who now serves as a judge at the Palembang High Court in South Sumatra, in Palembang on Tuesday following a string of raids at his houses in the South Sumatran provincial capital and Jakarta.
“We found strong indications that the acquittal was because three other suspects and RS accepted bribes and/or illegal gifts from [Ronald’s] lawyer Lisa Rachmat,” said Abdul Qohar, investigations director at the office of the assistant attorney general for extraordinary crimes, in a press briefing on Tuesday evening.
Abdul referred to the three judges handling Ronald’s case who had already been named suspects in the case, namely Erintuah Damanik, Mangapul and Heru Hanindyo. They are currently standing trial at the Jakarta Corruption Court.
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