JAKARTA: The Attorney-General’s Office (AGO) has opened up the possibility of pursuing capital punishment against suspects in the corruption case pertaining to fuel imports at state energy holding firm Pertamina.
Over the few past weeks, the AGO has named nine suspects for alleged involvement in an embezzlement scheme surrounding fuel imports that is estimated to have cost the state nearly Rp 1 quadrillion (US$61 billion).
Six of the nine suspects are senior executives of Pertamina subsidiaries, including PT Pertamina Patra Niaga president director Riva Siahaan. The rest were executives of private oil and gas companies, including Kerry Adrianto, the son of oil tycoon Riza Chalid.
The suspects allegedly manipulated Pertamina’s oil import and export deals from 2018 to 2023 by reducing refinery output to force imports through rigged tenders with inflated prices. The scheme also involved the alleged procurement of lower-octane subsidised gasoline to be sold fraudulently at a higher price
During a press briefing on Thursday (March 6), Attorney-General ST Burhanuddin said that his office might seek the death penalty for the nine suspects on the grounds that the corruption took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, which began in 2020.
“We’ll examine the investigation results to see whether there are any aggravating factors, given that they committed the crime during the Covid pandemic,” Burhanuddin said. “Of course, the potential punishment will be heavier. It could be the death penalty. But we’ll first see the results of the investigation,” he added.
The 2001 Corruption Law stipulates that the death penalty may be handed down in the case of corruption committed under certain circumstances, such as a national disaster or emergency, economic or military crisis or for repeat offenders. But throughout the country’s history, none of the people convicted for corruption has been sentenced to death by the courts.
Should AGO investigators push for the court to hand down death sentences for the suspects, it would not be the first time for an Indonesian law enforcement institution to pursue such a punishment.
Among the latest demands for capital punishment by the AGO was at the trial of a high-profile corruption case pertaining to state-owned PT Asabri, which manages insurance and pension funds for the military, the police and employees of the Defense Ministry.
In 2021, prosecutors demanded that businessman Heru Hidayat, who had been convicted in another graft case pertaining to state insurer PT Jiwasraya, be sentenced to death by the judges. They argued that Heru, who was accused of stealing from Asabri, was a repeat offender given his previous conviction in the Jiwasraya case, while also causing huge state losses.
But the court ended up not even sentencing him to imprisonment, citing that he had been given a life sentence in the Jiwasraya case. Heru was still ordered to pay restitution by the Jakarta Corruption Court in January 2022.
Burhanuddin’s statement on the possible death sentence for suspects in the Pertamina case came as Indonesia scored 37 in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, putting the country in 99th place of 180 countries surveyed.
The score was an improvement from 34 in 2023, but still below the global average of 43. An index score of 0 indicates that a country is extremely corrupt, while 100 means it is free of corruption.
But the statement was met with criticism by observers, such as Wawan Sujatmiko of Transparency International Indonesia, who argued that imposing the death penalty on corruption convicts would not be a solution for the problem in the country.
He argued that other countries that have used capital punishment to punish graft convicts had not succeeded in discouraging others from committing similar crimes. “Imposing the death penalty while our law enforcement system is not prudent and measurable would be fatal,” Wawan told The Jakarta Post on Friday. “No one can guarantee that capital punishment would not be used as a political vehicle to punish political rivals.”
Rather than pursuing death sentences, he suggested the AGO work seriously in the investigation to, among other things, prove any political motivation behind the illicit acts.
Zaenur Rohman, senior researcher of Gadjah Mada University’s Center for Anticorruption Studies (Pukat UGM), said the Covid-19 pandemic was not strong enough to justify the AGO seeking the death penalty for the Pertamina graft suspects.
“The law suggests that they can pursue the death penalty when the crime is committed during a national natural disaster, however, the pandemic was a non-natural disaster,” he said.
Wawan also highlighted the AGO’s claim of huge state losses, noting that the institution had failed to prove such claims in court in previous cases. He called for the office to be more careful when coming up with the figures for projected state losses from corruption cases.
“Claiming a fantastic amount of state losses and later saying that it would pursue the death penalty appears to be the AGO’s effort to make up for its shortcomings,” Wawan said. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
