Judges Acquitted 3 Defendants In Bengkulu Flood Control Corruption

BENGKULU - The Bengkulu Corruption Court Judge acquitted three defendants in the corruption case in the construction of the Bengkulu river flood control for the 2019 fiscal year.

The three defendants are Isnani Martuti, contractor/Director of CV Merbin Indah, Hapizon Nazardi, Head of Water Resources (SDA) of the Bengkulu PUPR Service as Budget User Authority (KPA), and Ibnu Suud Director of CV Utaka Essa as supervisory consultant.

The chairman of the panel of judges Fitrizal Yanto decided that the three defendants were not proven to have committed a criminal act of corruption in the construction of the Rp6.9 billion project.

"Declaring that the defendant Isnaini Martuti is not guilty of committing a criminal act of corruption based on primary and subsidiary charges," said the panel of judges when reading the verdict in the court room, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, October 6.

The public prosecutor (JPU) charged the defendants with different charges, namely that Isnaini was prosecuted for 4 years, while the defendants Hapizon Nazardi and Ibnu Suud were charged with imprisonment of 2 years and 6 months each.

Based on the decision of the panel of judges, the Public Prosecutor will coordinate with the leadership to make an appeal and will state his position in the next seven days.

"Regarding the judge's decision, we state that we are thinking about it, of course, with the mechanism of reporting to the leadership and within 7 days we will state our position," said one member of the Public Prosecutor's Office, Rozano Yudhistira.

The trial was attended by a number of the defendant's family and immediately welcomed the emotions and cries of the judge's decision.

In addition, the judge ordered the prosecutor to immediately release the three defendants who are currently in the Bengkulu Class IIB Rutan.

The Bengkulu river flood control project in 2019 with a contract value of IDR 6.9 billion, by the Indonesian Financial Audit Agency (BPK) found around IDR 537 million in state losses, but has been returned to the state treasury.

Even though the findings have been returned, the Bengkulu Prosecutor's Special Investigations Team carried out an examination, because there were indications of other potential state losses in the project. This is because the three defendants are alleged to have carried out the construction carelessly and did not have a work reference, so that the results of the work did not meet specifications and resulted in state losses of Rp. 1.9 billion.