Professor Of Law Explains Repetition Of Criminal Acts, After Sentenced To Do Again

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JAKARTA - Professor of Criminal Law Prof. Andi Hamzah explained the definition or purpose of repeating a crime in a criminal case or case.

According to him, an act is declared as a repetition of a criminal act if a person commits a new crime after previously being proven guilty in a court decision with permanent legal force.

Andi gave an example, a person who had committed an act of corruption and was found guilty by the court, then the person concerned committed another crime of corruption.

"It's repetition, it's been decided, corruption again.

The polemic of repeating the crime has emerged to the public after the public prosecutor from the Attorney General's Office demanded the death penalty against the defendant in the alleged corruption case of Asabri, Heru Hidayat, with the death penalty. The prosecutor assessed that Heru had repeated the crime because he was also involved in the Jiwasraya corruption case.

A number of experts and criminal experts questioned the prosecutor's demand for the defendant Heru Hidayat with the death penalty on the premise of repeating criminal acts. The opinion of this expert and criminal expert is in line with Andi Hamzah's view.

Corruption Law expert who is also Professor of Criminal Law at Airlangga University, Nur Basuki Minarno, said that Heru Hidayat's crimes in the Asabri case could not be categorized as repeat crimes.

The reason is that the crimes committed by Heru Hidayat in the Jiwasraya case are almost the same as the crimes in the Asabri case.

According to Nur, the only difference between the two is the timing of the prosecution in which the Jiwasraya case was processed earlier than the Asabri case.

“Can it be said that the defendant Heru Hidayat's actions in the Asabri case are a repetition of the crimes committed by Heru Hidayat in the Jiwasraya case? So, if I pay attention, the events are almost the same, meaning that the time of the incident occurred at the same time.

It's just that the prosecution process is different. So, this is not a repeat of a criminal act," said Nur.

According to Nur, the crimes committed by Heru Hidayat in the Jiwasraya and Asabri cases fall into the category of realist discourse or meerdaadse samenloop. This means that someone commits a number of criminal acts at the same time and each crime stands alone.

“This is a concourse, in law, it is called a realist concourse. So, committing several criminal acts, each of which is threatened with its own punishment. So, it is not appropriate for the prosecutor to give Heru Hidayat a weight on the grounds that Heru Hidayat has repeated the crime," he explained.

This realist consensus, said Nur, is different from repeating a criminal act or residive. According to him, residive occurs when someone commits another crime after being previously found guilty based on a decision that has permanent legal force.

"If the repetition is not criminal or residive like this, he is sentenced to a crime, after he is sentenced, he commits another criminal act. It's not the Heru Hidayat case, all of the criminal acts have been done, only processed not at the same time. So, the Jiwasraya and Asabri cases are almost the same, only the prosecution comes first with Jiwasraya, then Jiwasraya is finished and then the Asabri case," said Nur.

In line with Nur, Criminal Expert from Trisakti University Dian Andriawan also admitted that he agreed that Heru Hidayat's actions could not be categorized as repeating criminal acts. According to him, repetition of a crime occurs when a person has been found guilty by a court decision with permanent legal force, then after that commits a new crime.

"The repetition of an act occurs when there has been an action decided by the court and then a new act is carried out. That's called repetition. If this is the case together. The understanding put forward by the prosecutor is wrong in my opinion," said Dian.

It is known, the Public Prosecutor of the Attorney General's Office (Kejagung) demanded the defendant in the alleged corruption case of Asabri, Heru Hidayat, with the death penalty. Prosecutors believe that Heru, together with a number of other parties, have been involved in corruption in the management of PT Asabri (Persero) funds, which caused a loss to state finances of around Rp22.78 trillion.