Expert Warns KPK to Lose Pre-trial Against Hadi Poernomo in Yaqut Pre-trial English: Expert Warns KPK to Lose Pre-trial Against Hadi Poernomo in Yaqut Pre-trial

Continuation of the pre-trial hearing of former Minister of Religion Yaqut Cholil Qoumas

JAKARTA - Criminal law expert Mahrus Ali emphasized that the report on the calculation of state losses is crucial evidence in the case of alleged corruption of the former Minister of Religion, Yaqut Cholil Qoumas. Mahrus reminded the KPK that it had lost in a pretrial against former Director General of Taxes Hadi Poernomo.

This was conveyed by Mahrus when he was an expert witness in the pretrial hearing of Yaqut at the South Jakarta District Court, Thursday, March 5. Mahrus initially explained about the criminal offense that the KPK accused Yaqut of.

"Then if we link it to the character of the offense in Articles 2 and 3 and 4, if I still say that there must be an investigative audit. Why? This is a material offense. That's why what is really needed is the patience of the investigator to wait for the results of the audit," said Mahrus.

It was only then that Mahrus reviewed Hadi Poernomo's pretrial application against the KPK in 2017. At that time, Hadi also questioned his designation as a suspect by the KPK. And the result, the KPK lost because the report on the calculation of state losses was not complete.

"In the past, Your Excellency, in the Hadi Poernomo case, this was the first case where the KPK lost, lost when it was stated that the BPK stated 'we only have 10% of this audit result', but the KPK leadership appointed a suspect," said Mahrus.

As previously reported, in yesterday's pretrial hearing, former Minister of Religion Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said the amount of state losses in the corruption case that ensnared him was not real. In fact, he admitted that he had never seen a report on state losses related to his case.

"In addition, until this Answer Letter was submitted, we did not see a real and certain calculation of losses, including the absence of a date listed in the audit results when it was carried out or indeed it had not been completed," said lawyer Yaqut, Mellisa Anggraeni, in a hearing at the South Jakarta District Court, with the agenda of reading the tree replika, Wednesday, March 5.