Is The Death Penalty Still Possible For Juliari Coal?

Juliari Coal (Source: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Public Prosecutor (JPU) of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) demanded that former Social Minister Juliari Batubara be jailed for 11 years and fined Rp500 million. In addition, he was also charged with an additional criminal charge of Rp. 14.5 billion. This lawsuit was filed against Juliari as a defendant in the COVID-19 social assistance bribery case in the Jabodetabek area that ensnared him. Although previously the Chairperson of the KPK, Firli Bahuri, had opened up the opportunity to give Juliari the death penalty, this did not happen.

Acting KPK Spokesperson for Enforcement, Ali Fikri, said that the demands had been made in accordance with the results of the investigation and the facts found. Ali told reporters, Friday, July 30. "As we all understand, OTT is the product of a closed investigation. It is not the result of case building through an open investigation, by summoning the relevant parties for questioning and clarification by the investigative team," It's just that Ali said the KPK is currently working on developing the COVID-19 social assistance case. With this development, it is not impossible for the perpetrators to be charged with other articles, including Articles 2 or 3 of the Anti-Corruption Law. according to the law," he said.

KPK asks the public not to have an opinion

Ali understands the public outcry over the actions Juliari took while in office. But he asked the public to refrain from expressing counterproductive opinions. "Because we must obey and obey legal norms in an effort to eradicate corruption," he stressed. several parties. Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) assessed that the KPK seemed reluctant to take firm action against the perpetrators of the COVID-19 social assistance corruption. The demands put forward also seem odd and suspicious. The reason is that the article on which the prosecution is based, namely Article 12 letter b of the Law on the Eradication of Criminal Acts of Corruption, actually accommodates life imprisonment and a fine of Rp. Kurnia said, this was unsatisfactory considering that the amount was less than 50 percent of the total bribes Juliari received.

Therefore, ICW considers that this low demand is not in accordance with the spirit of eradicating corruption and the statement of the KPK leadership. "These low demands contradict the spirit of eradicating corruption."

"In fact, the KPK leadership has boasted that it will severely punish the COVID-19 social assistance corruptors," said ICW researcher Kurnia Ramadhana, Thursday, July 29.

ICW calls KPK the representative of corruptors

According to Kurnia, the KPK as a representative of the state and victims should act to demand accountability for the crimes committed by Juliari. But this is actually not being carried out properly because the anti-corruption commission seems to be the representative of the perpetrators of corruption. Besides ICW, former KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah also spoke about the 11-year-old charge against Juliari. According to him, this demand cannot cure the suffering of people who are victims of corruption in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. years or a lifetime. Far from a maximum threat," said Febri. "And those who benefit from the suffering of the community are victims of this social assistance corruption," said Febri. This work, he said, had to be done to investigate the COVID-19 social assistance bribery case. Moreover, there were many controversies in handling the case, including the deactivation of the KPK investigator who was in charge of this case. For information, there were 2 investigators in the social assistance bribery case who were disabled along with 73 other employees. They were deactivated after being declared unable to pass the National Insight Test Assessment (TWK) as a condition for the transfer of employee status to State Civil Apparatus (ASN). "We remember that the handling of this case gave rise to a number of controversies. Starting from the names of politicians who appeared but it was not clear what the next process would be to the social assistance investigators who were removed using the TWK tool which was legally problematic," he concluded.

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