West Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office Names Corruption Suspect For Transfer Of State Forest Rights

Assistant for Special Crimes (Aspidsus) of the West Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office, Feri Mupahir (center)/ANTARA/HO/Section of Penkum, West Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office

MAMUJU - The West Sulawesi High Prosecutor's Office has named three suspects for alleged corruption in the transfer of rights to a state forest with a protected forest function in Tadui Village, Mamuju Regency.

Assistant for Special Crimes at the West Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office, Feri Mupahir, said the three people named as suspects, namely MI, MN, and MU.

"Today, three people have been named as suspects in alleged corruption in the transfer of rights to a state forest with a protected forest function in Tadui Village, Mamuju Regency," said Feri Mupahir as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, August 1.

"The three of them were immediately detained at the Mamuju Class IIB Rutan, for 20 days starting from today until August 20, 2022," he added.

The three people named as suspects, he continued, in 2017 were employees of the Mamuju BPN and currently one of the suspects is the Head of BPN in one of the districts in West Sulawesi, then one person has the status of ASN in the West Sulawesi Land Office and one suspect has retired.

The detention of the three suspects, said Feri Mupahir, was based on the consideration that the article that was suspected was an article that carries a penalty of more than five years, as seen in Article 21 paragraph (4) letter a of the Criminal Procedure Code.

"Then there is the concern that the suspect will escape and damage or destroy evidence and affect other witnesses.

The suspect's case file is in the preparation stage so that the handling process will be completed quickly," explained Feri Mupahir.

Previously, the West Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office detained three suspects in the case, namely ADH as the owner of the Tadui Village gas station, HN the former Head of the Mamuju BPN and the former Tadui Village Head with the initials SB.

The alleged corruption case of the conversion of protected forest functions took place in 2016. At that time, ADH purchased land in a protected forest area in Tadui Village with the intention of building a public gas station (SPBU).

Furthermore, suspect SB, who was then the head of Tadui Village, issued a sporadic (physical statement of land parcel) whose status was listed as free state land, even though it was known that the location was a forest area.

Then, based on the sporadic basis, ADH submitted an application for the issuance of a certificate to the Head of BPN Mamuju, who at that time held HN.

The suspect HN approved the issuance of the ownership status of the ADH application, without coordinating or requesting information from the Forestry Service or other authorized agencies and subsequently on March 23, 2017 issued SHM Number 611 covering an area of 10,370 square meters.

For the control of land in the protected forest area, the state suffered a loss of Rp. 2.8 billion.