JAKARTA - The Attorney General's Office (AGO) finally admitted that it failed to prove that the assets belonging to Heru Hidayat and Benny Tjokrosaputro in the form of bitcoins were a mode of concealment of PT Asabri's corruption proceeds. This was conveyed directly by the Director of Investigation to the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes at the Attorney General's Office, Febrie Adriansyah.
Febrie admitted that his party found an empty bitcoin account. Responding to this, Kresna Hutauruk as Heru Hidayat's attorney also emphasized that the failure proved that the AGO had only assumed.
Kresna also denied allegations of bitcoin transactions allegedly carried out by his client.
"As our previous response, our clients have never played and invested in bitcoin," Kresna told reporters on Wednesday, June 23.
He also appealed to the Attorney General's Office not to make opinions and slander that make the public rowdy. In fact, he said, tracing bitcoin investment accounts is actually easy to do, especially at the request of law enforcement.
"Bitcoin investment is very easy to trace, who invested, what account, from which account and where did the money go. So it is better for the Attorney General's Office to open the data to the public, who actually invests in bitcoin," he said.
According to him, the prosecutor's office tends to lead public opinion and is unfair by not clearly mentioning the names of the suspects who invested in bitcoin.
"Instead of just calling them the suspects, it leads to opinions as if our clients are investing in bitcoin, even though the investment is not haram. Especially when it is said to vacate the account," said Kresna.
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"By only naming suspects or suspects, the AGO leads public opinion and slander, as I said above, it is very easy to trace bitcoin accounts, especially since the AGO has the authority. Once again we emphasize that our clients have never invested in bitcoin," he said.
Separately, Trisakti University Criminal Law expert, Abdul Fickar, said that the AGO should first prove that there was a state loss due to bitcoin investment before submitting it to the public.
"It doesn't matter if they want bitcoin, whatever they do, the important thing is that there is proof that their actions are detrimental to the state," said Fickar.
However, he continued, the prosecutor's office in their work should not assume and guess, because the function of prosecutors around the world is as a public prosecutor.
"That's why a prosecutor or his institution is prohibited from making assumptions and issuing statements based on estimates or opinions," he said.
The prosecutor's statement must also be based on the available evidence.
"If you are still assuming, then the prosecutor's office will be trapped as an authoritarian prosecution agency and this will affect the validity of its work. The prosecutor's office must work based on facts," said Fickar.
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