The NTT High Prosecutor's Office Summons Gories Mere And Karni Ilyas To Become Witnesses In The Alleged Corruption Case Of Labuan Bajo Land

Head of the Section for Legal Information and Public Relations of the NTT Attorney General's Office, Abdul Hakim (DOK. ANTARA)

KUPANG - The East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) High Prosecutor's Office scheduled a summons to investigate the former Head of BNN Gories Mere and Karni Ilyas. The two are scheduled to become witnesses in the alleged corruption case of state land assets in Labuan Bajo, West Manggarai Regency, Flores Island, Wednesday.

"Today we schedule an examination of Gories Mere and Karni Ilyas as witnesses in the alleged corruption case of state assets in Labuan Bajo," said Head of the Legal Information and Public Relations Section of the NTT Attorney General's Office, Abdul Hakim, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, December 2.

Abdul said this case was related to the progress of the investigation into the alleged corruption case of transferring West Manggarai government land assets in Kerangan Torro Lemma Batu Kallo, Labuan Bajo Village, Komodo District. It is suspected that the state's financial loss is IDR 3 trillion.

Previously, the NTT Attorney General's Office of Special Crimes (Tipidsus) had sent the first summons to Gories Mere and Karni Ilyas to be examined as witnesses in the case.

Abdul Hakim said the first summons had been received by the two witnesses. If Gories Mere and Karni Ilyas are not present at today's examination, the High Prosecutor's Office will schedule a second summons for examination.

"We will schedule it again if the two witnesses are not present as witnesses in this first summons," he said.

Earlier, Abdul Hakim said that the NTT Attorney's Office investigators had already pocketed the potential suspect as well as a number of evidence obtained during the investigation of the case.

According to him, investigators have also confiscated Rp140 million suspected of being facilitation payments to smoothen the process of selling the land assets belonging to the West Manggarai Regency Government.

"We are targeting the case files for the sale of government land assets in West Manggarai to be transferred to the Kupang Corruption Court in December 2020," he said.