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AGO arrests PDI-P lawmaker for alleged mining permit fraud
The AGO has arrested a PDI-P lawmaker who was the regent of West Kutai when the alleged forged documents were issued, which were then used by several companies to prove their ownership of an East Kalimantan mine confiscated to reclaim state losses incurred in the Jiwasraya corruption case.
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he Attorney General’s Office (AGO) on Tuesday arrested Ismail Thomas, a lawmaker from the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and a former regent of West Kutai, for allegedly forging permits for a coal mine in East Kalimantan.
AGO spokesperson Ketut Sumedana said Ismail had been charged with violating Article 9 of the 2001 Corruption Law.
The article carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a fine of Rp 250 million (US$16,258) for any state officials found guilty of falsifying government documents.
“We allege that the suspect, along with several other individuals, forged documents that ended up being used in courts,” Ketut told a press briefing on Tuesday.
Ismail is suspected of forging permits that show mining company PT Sendawar Jaya as the owner of a 5,350-hectare coal mine in West Kutai, East Kalimantan, which the AGO had confiscated in connection with the PT Asuransi Jiwasraya graft case.
The mine was previously owned by PT Gunung Bara Utama, a subsidiary of another mining company belonging to businessman Heru Hidayat, who was tried and convicted for his role in the Jiwasraya case.
The case involving the state insurer is one of the largest financial scandals in the country’s history and resulted in state losses totaling Rp 16.8 trillion.
Read also: Jiwasraya: Understanding Indonesia's largest financial scandal
The Jakarta Corruption Court found Heru guilty of corruption and money laundering and sentenced him on Oct. 26, 2020 to life in prison and ordered him to pay Rp 10.7 trillion in restitution.
The AGO then auctioned off the confiscated mine to recover the state losses incurred in the Jiwasraya case, with the mine going to winning bidder PT Indobara Utama Mandiri for Rp 1.94 trillion.
However, several companies including PT Sendawar Jaya filed a lawsuit with the South Jakarta District Court that claimed they had owned the West Kutai mine since 2008. To support their suit, the plaintiffs submitted ownership documents allegedly forged by Ismail, who served as West Kutai regent between 2006 and 2016.
The district court ruled in favor of Sendawar, but this was later annulled by an appellate court.
“The lawsuit is still ongoing. But we found that Ismail was one of several people who were involved in forging documents [for Sendawar],” the AGO’s Ketut said.
AGO investigators have detained Ismail for 20 days at Salemba Prison in Central Jakarta, with a possible extension for another 40 days.
The PDI-P was following the case as it developed and would take appropriate action when all was clear, party executive and House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani said on Wednesday, on the sidelines of the State of the Nation Address.
Read also: In fight against graft, AGO’s recent high-profile cases cast shadow over KPK’s work
Ismail is the latest government official that the AGO has arrested for alleged corruption.
In May, the office arrested then-communications and information minister Johnny G. Plate, a NasDem Party politician, as a suspect in the botched procurement of base transceiver stations in a 4G telephony government project.
His trial is ongoing at the Jakarta Corruption Court.
The AGO also recently grilled Airlangga Hartarto, the Coordinating Economic Minister and Golkar Party chairman, as a witness in a corruption case pertaining to the domestic cooking oil shortage in 2022. Investigators questioned him about the policies he had issued on crude palm oil (CPO) experts and export permit processes.
The office has named five people and three private palm oil companies as suspects of alleged misconduct in obtaining permits for exporting CPO when shipments of the commodity were banned. (yer)
