Detention Of 2 Defendants Of Exploitation Of Gili Trawangan-Meno Water Suspended, Mataram District Court: Consideration Of Illness

The trial of the case of unauthorized groundwater exploitation at Gili Meno and Trawangan with the defendants Samsul Hadi and William Johnatur at the Mataram District Court, Thursday (20/6/2024). (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Mataram District Court (PN) panel of judges announced the suspension of the detention of two defendants in the case of unauthorized groundwater exploitation in the Gili Trawangan and Meno tourist areas, Lombok Island.

Both are Director of PT Gerbang NTB Emas (GNE) Samsul Hadi and Director of PT Berkah Air Laut (BAL) William John air.

"The suspension of detention was granted due to consideration of illness," said Mataram spokesman Kelik Trimargo in Mataram, Wednesday, August 7, as reported by Antara.

The referrals of the panel of judges granted this, seeing the condition of the two defendants who were not present three times in the trial agenda.

As long as the two defendants were not present on the trial agenda, the public prosecutor showed them to the panel of judges with a sick certificate from the two defendants.

"So, now the two defendants are city prisoners," he said.

Based on data from the Case Investigation Information System (SIPP) of the Mataram District Court, Samsul Hadi and William Johnmen's detention status was suspended by a panel of judges with unknown types of detention. The panel of judges determined the detention status as of July 29, 2024.

Herman Sorenggana, the defendant Samsul Hadi's legal adviser, has not yet given a response when confirmed by telephone and a short message from WhatsApp regarding his client's illness.

The two defendants in this case submitted a suspension of detention in the inaugural trial of reading the indictment on June 20, 2024.

Herman previously explained that there were two considerations for submitting the transfer of detention status in accordance with the rules of the criminal procedural law (KUHAP), both normatively and socially.

"For social consideration, we see the water crisis that is currently happening in Gili Meno, to note that only these two directors (defendants) can activate the operation of clean water distribution in Gili. That's why we hope that the transfer is granted so that the water crisis problem in Gili Meno is resolved," he said.

In this case, the public prosecutor charged Samsul Hadi and William John totaling landwater exploitation activities in the Gili Trawangan and Meno tourist areas without a drilling permit (SIP) and a land water utilization permit (SIPA).

This resulted in environmental damage, one of which was in the indictment that there was a fairly high level of salt in the production of groundwater from PT BAL and PT GNE.

In fact, in the long term, it was concluded that geologists from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) could result in degradation of the quality of the soil and groundwater around the drilling area.

From the description of the indictment, the prosecutor charged the two defendants with violating Article 70 letter D in conjunction with Article 49 paragraph (2) of the Republic of Indonesia Law Number 6 of 2023 concerning the stipulation of Government Regulation in Lieu of Law Number 2 of 2022 concerning Job Creation and/or Article 68 letters A and B as well as Article 69 letters A and B of Law Number 17 of 2019 concerning Water Resources jo. Article 56 of the 2nd Criminal Code.