Corruption Court Judge Rejects Exceptions For 4 Corruption Accused In Sriwijaya Mosque Project

PALEMBANG - The Panel of Judges for the Crime of Corruption (Tipikor) of the Palembang District Court, South Sumatra (Sumsel) rejected all exceptions or memorandums of objection for the four defendants in the corruption case of the Sriwijaya Palembang Grand Mosque construction grant.

The chairman of the panel of judges, Sahlan Effendi, said that the exception made by the defendant's legal counsel was rejected because the points of the demands did not find any elements of violation.

Sahlan explained that the defendant's legal counsel's exception contained questions about the results of the audit team of the South Sumatra High Prosecutor's Office on the value of state losses from the construction of mosques obtained from institutions whose accuracy was doubtful.

"So the prosecutor's accusations are vague, because the results of the state audit are not clear," he said, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, August 18.

According to them, an accurate audit should be obtained from institutions such as the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) or the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP) not from outside these institutions.

But after the panel of judges studied the exception points, according to the judges' assessment, what investigators did was legal and there were no conflicting rules.

"So the legal advisor's exception cannot be accepted or rejected," he said.

Meanwhile, the panel assessed that the indictment from the Public Prosecutor (JPU) of the South Sumatra High Prosecutor's Office was in accordance with the formal and material requirements.

Therefore, the judge decided to continue the trial on Wednesday, August 25 next week with the agenda of hearing the testimony of witnesses presented by the prosecutor.

To prove the indications of state losses from the mosque construction budget that was issued in 2015 and 2017, the four defendants were Eddy Hermanto, Syarifudin MF, Dwi Kridayani, and Yudi Arminto.