Yasonna Laoly: Some Are Making Efforts To Prevent Maria Pauline From Being Extradited

Fugitive Maria Pauline Lumowa (Photo: Public Relations Kemenkumham)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Law and Human Rights has successfully completed the extradition process for Maria Pauline Lumowa, who is a fugitive for the BNI fraud case worth Rp1.7 trillion from Serbia. However, during the process there was a disturbance to thwart the repatriation attempt.

Minister of Law and Human Rights, Yasonna Laoly said, there were several disturbances in this process, including European countries trying to thwart extradition. Meanwhile, attorney Pauline Lumowa tried to bribe him.

"During this process, there were countries from Europe who tried to do diplomacy so that he would not be extradited to Indonesia and his lawyer tried to take legal action as well, which according to yesterday, before leaving to speak with the assistant to the Minister of Justice at the airport, he said, efforts such as making bribes, "said Yasona in Jakarta, Thursday, July 9.

However, the Serbian government remains committed to its decision to hand over Maria Pauline Lumowa to the Indonesian Government. The reason is because the good relations between the two countries are very close. While Yasonna continued to make a diplomatic approach, the woman who was fugitive for 17 years was finally brought to Indonesia.

"Although we do not have an extradition agreement with Sebria, we have good relations, but with a high-level diplomacy approach we can finally bring him here successfully," said Yasonna.

After the extradition process was completed, Maria Pauline Lumowa was handed over to the Directorate General of General Legal Administration (Ditjen AHU), Ministry of Law and Human Rights. Then, Maria was delegated to Bareskrim Polri.

"Yesterday afternoon at 14.00 WIB it was handed over to us through a procedure directed to the AHU Director General who signed the acceptance. Then we submitted it to Bareskrim and he was taken to the plane in a state of handcuffs and still handcuffed for reasons of flight safety," said Yasonna.

Maria Pauline Lumowa is a fugitive from the Indonesian government. This is because he is a suspect in the cash burglary case at the Bank BNI Kebayoran Baru branch using a fictitious Letter of Credit (L / C) mode.

In the period from October 2002 to July 2003, Bank BNI suffered a loss of 136 million US dollars and 56 million euros or the equivalent of Rp 1.7 trillion based on the current exchange rate. This amount of money is a loan from PT Gramarindo Group owned by Maria Pauline Lumowa and Adrian Waworuntu.

BNI Bank began to feel suspicion. Because, the borrowing process which should be quite difficult because of the large nominal it runs very easily. It is suspected that PT Gramarindo Group was assisted by unscrupulous employees of Bank BNI because the loan application continued to agree with guarantees of L / C from Dubai Bank Kenya Ltd., Rosbank Switzerland, Middle East Bank Kenya Ltd., and The Wall Street Banking Corp.

Moreover, some of the banks that became the guarantor were not correspondence banks of Bank BNI. This suspicion grew stronger in June 2003. BNI investigated the financial transactions of PT Gramarindo Group. As a result, the company never made exports or was not in accordance with what was reported during the loan process.

Until finally, BNI reported the alleged fictitious L / C to the National Police Headquarters. However, Maria Pauline Lumowa left Indonesia by going to Singapore in September 2003 or a month before being named a suspect.

From the results of the investigation, it was found that the woman had often been in the Netherlands in 2009 and often went back and forth to Singapore. In fact, it is known that Maria has been a Dutch citizen since 1979. Thus, the Indonesian government tried to apply for extradition to the Dutch government twice, to be precise in 2010 and 2014.

However, the Dutch Government rejected the request. Instead, it provides an option for Maria Pauline Lumowa to be tried in the Netherlands. Until finally, the woman was arrested on July 16, 2019, according to an Interpol red notice published in 2004.