Proven Corruption, Ambon BLK Treasurer Sentenced To 8 Years In Prison

The Ambon Corruption Court judges sentenced Leuwaradja HM Ferdinandus, a defendant in the routine budget corruption of the Ambon Job Training Center for eight years in prison. (16/10) (ANTARA/daniel/)

Ambon Corruption Court sentenced Ambon to 8 years in prison for Expenditure Treasurer at the Ambon Job Training Center (BLK), Leuwaradja HM Ferdinandus. This verdict is higher than the prosecutor's demand for 7.5 years in prison.

"Declaring that the defendant is legally and convincingly proven guilty of violating Article 3 Juncto Article 18 of Law Number 20 of 2021 concerning amendments to Law Number 31 of 1999 concerning corruption," said chairman of the panel of judges, corruption, Rahmat Selang, in Ambon, as reported by ANTARA, Monday, October 16.

Accompanied by two member judges, the defendant was also sentenced to pay a fine of Rp. 500 million, subsidiary to 6 months in prison and compensation of Rp. 2,030 billion.

With the provision that within one month if you do not pay the replacement money after this decision has permanent legal force, the prosecutor can confiscate the property and auction it off to cover the replacement money.

"If the property is not sufficient to cover the replacement money, it will be replaced with an additional sentence of two years in prison," said the panel of judges.

As for the aggravating things, the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment, fines, and to pay compensation for not supporting the government's program in eradicating KKN and his actions had enriched himself or other people resulting in state financial losses of Rp2,030,873,555.

For mitigating matters, the defendant was polite and admitted and regretted his actions, the defendant had never been convicted and had family responsibilities.

Public Prosecutor's Office of Ambon Endang Anakode and Evi Temar said that in 2021 the Ambon BLK will receive Rp27.8 billion in funds from the Indonesian Ministry of Manpower.

This budget is included in the Ambon BLK DIPA according to the latest revision Number 026.13.2,219228/2021 dated December 8, 2021, amounting to Rp27.8 billion and according to the realization of Ambon BLK expenditures of Rp27.5 billion.

However, it was later discovered that the defendant falsified or made a number of proofs of expenditure that were not accompanied by valid evidence of responsibility and inflated the budget (Mark Up) to finance a number of activities.

However, there are six expenditure activities that are suspected to be fictitious and cause state financial losses.

This state financial loss is based on the audit report on the calculation of state financial losses on the alleged corruption case of the Ambon BLK routine budget for Fiscal Year 2021 number PE.03.03/R/SP-1032/PW25/5/2023 dated May 31, 2023.

Based on the judge's decision, both the prosecutor and the defendant expressed their thoughts so that they were given the opportunity for seven days to state their position.