Rangga Prakoso – The Attorney General's Office is mulling the possibility of stopping an investigation into a high-profile graft case after the Supreme Court reversed its conviction of earlier suspects.
On Thursday, Zulkarnaen Yunus, a former Justice Ministry director general, had his guilty verdict overturned. Last year, two other now-former suspects – former Justice Ministry official Romli Atmasasmita and businessman Yohanes Waworuntu – had their guilty verdicts quashed by the court as well.
Zulkarnaen had been sentenced to a year in prison for his role in a Rp 410 billion ($44.69 million) embezzlement case linked to a business registration Web site, later found to have had a disproportionate revenue-sharing scheme.
Attorney General Basrief Arief said Zulkarnaen's acquittal might spell the end of the investigation against the two remaining suspects – former minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra and Hartono Tanoesoedibjo, owner of a company that operates the Web site. Yusril and Hartono were charged in 2009, but their cases have yet to go to trial.
Basrief said his office was weighing whether to push on with the prosecution. "I am ordering the prosecutors [in charge of the investigation] to get a copy [of Zulkarnaen's acquittal]," he said. "Afterwards, we will swiftly evaluate."
Deputy Attorney General Darmono said there had been no official decision on the matter. "We cannot decide yet," he said. "We must wait for the complete evaluation first." Soon, he said, the AGO would hold an internal meeting to decide what to do.
Yusril, who before becoming minister was a respected lawyer and politician, said that with three suspects already acquitted, prosecutors no longer had sufficient legal grounds to pursue the case.
"There is absolutely no reason for the AGO to continue this investigation," he said. "The case has not only damaged the good names of those named as suspects and charged, but it also tarnishing the reputation of the entire prosecutor's office."
Yusril said that the case had been weak from the start. He said he suspected his political rivals had forced the AGO to push on with it.
Prosecutors have accused Yusril of appointing Sarana Rekatama Dinamika as the sole provider of the Web site, www.sisminbakum.go.id, and of being responsible for the disproportionate split of the site's profit, with 90 percent going to the company and 10 percent to the ministry's Pengayoman cooperative.
Between 2001 and 2008, Sarana is alleged to have siphoned off Rp 410 billion. The government took over the site in 2008.
Yusril said the government had yet to decide if revenue should go to the state coffers, arguing that no state losses had been incurred by the scheme.