Attorney General's Office Searches Ombudsman Building Related to the Fried Oil Case

JAKARTA - The Attorney General's Office searched the Ombudsman's building regarding the alleged obstruction of investigation and prosecution of the cooking oil case involving three corporations.

The search was carried out by investigators at the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes (Jampidsus).

"It's true (a search)," said Head of the Legal Information Center of the Attorney General's Office, Anang Supriatna, quoted by ANTARA, Monday, March 9.

In addition to the Ombudsman building, investigators also searched the house of one of the Ombudsman commissioners. However, he did not reveal the identity of the commissioner.

He said the case concerned the convicted Marcella Santoso and three corporations, namely the Wilmar Group, the Permata Hijau Group, and the Musim Mas Group.

In addition, it is also related to the civil lawsuit filed by the three corporations to the PTUN. The Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia is suspected of providing recommendations to strengthen the lawsuit.

Marcella Santoso was proven to have given bribes in conditioning the decision to release the case of corruption in the provision of crude palm oil (CPO) export facilities and committing money laundering (TPPU) in 2025.

He was proven to have bribed the judge handling the CPO case by 4 million US dollars (USD) or the equivalent of Rp. 60 billion and committed TPPU worth 2 million US dollars in the case, which were each carried out together with lawyer Ariyanto.

In the bribery case, the two, together with Wahyu Gunawan as a young civil clerk at the North Jakarta District Court, became intermediaries for the Wilmar team to give bribes to the suspect Muhammad Arif Nuryanta as Deputy Chairman of the Central Jakarta District Court at that time.

The bribe money was then distributed by Arif to three judges who acted as a panel of judges in the CPO case, namely Djuyamto, Agam Syarif Baharuddin, and Ali Muhtarom, with the aim of facilitating the granting of a free verdict against the three corporations.