Prabowo Criticizes Harvey Moeis' Light Sentence: The Verdict Is 50 Years

President Prabowo Subianto briefed high-ranking officials of the central government and local governments during the Musrenbangnas/ANTARA/HO-Bappenas RI event.

JAKARTA - President Prabowo Subianto at the National Development Planning Conference (Musrenbangnas) in Jakarta, Monday, criticized the judges who sentenced corruptors lightly.

Prabowo assessed that the light verdict for corruptors hurt the hearts of the people. Therefore, President Prabowo ordered Attorney General ST Burhanuddin to appeal corruption cases whose verdict is believed to be too light.

"The people understand that the robbery of hundreds of trillions of sentences (years)," said the President in front of high-ranking officials of ministries/agencies and regional heads while giving a briefing at the Musrenbangnas as reported by ANTARA, Monday, December 30.

The President continued to emphasize that corruption defendants should receive a severe verdict.

"The version is 50 years, that's about it," the President told the Attorney General.

The President also reminded the Minister of Immigration and Corrections, Agus Andrianto, to ensure that the convicts, especially convicts of corruption, do not get convenience while languishing in prison.

"Later, maybe the prison will use an air conditioner, have a refrigerator, use a TV. Please, the minister of corrections, the attorney general," said President Prabowo.

In addition, Prabowo reminded the ranks of government officials to work together to fix themselves.

"I don't blame anyone. This is our collective error. Let's clean it up. So, I say government officials, we use this to clean ourselves up before the people clean us up. It's better for us to clean ourselves up," Prabowo warned his staff.

When mentioning the light verdict, the President did not clearly mention the case.

However, public attention in the last few days has led to a light verdict by the panel of judges at the Corruption Court (Tipikor) to Harvey Moeis in the tin corruption case.

The panel of judges while reading out their verdict last week (23/12) found Harvey guilty and sentenced him to 6 years and 6 months in prison, while prosecutors demanded 12 years. In reading the verdict, the panel of judges also admitted that Harvey and the other defendants were guilty of costing the state up to Rp300 trillion.

After reading the verdict, the prosecutor filed an appeal to the high court over the verdict received by Harvey.