Dutch Embassy Refuses Legal Assistance For Maria Pauline Lumowa

The suspect in the BNI burglary case Maria Pauline Lumowa (Photo: Humas Kemenkumham)

JAKARTA - The Dutch Embassy (Embassy) finally issued a decision not to provide legal assistance to a citizen, Maria Pauline Lumowa, who was a suspect in the BNI burglary.

Karo Penmas of the National Police's Public Relations Division, Brigadier General Awi Setiyono, said that the Dutch Embassy only provided a list of the names of lawyers who were commonly used to resolve these cases. However, the Dutch Embassy did not provide an explanation regarding the reasons for not providing legal assistance to Maria.

"Until last night there was confirmation that the Dutch Embassy would not provide legal assistance, only provided a list of lawyers used by the Dutch Embassy," Awi said in Jakarta, Friday, July 17.

Until now, Maria has not chosen the proposed lawyer.

"Last night (Maria) asked for time to think about which coordination with her family to choose," said Awi.

However, if Maria never makes a choice, said Awi, the investigator will prepare a legal attorney. So, the process of examining the case that happened to Maia can immediately run.

"Even if there is no other choice, of course the last option is that we investigators have an obligation to provide a lawyer," said Awi.

Previously, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights successfully completed the extradition process for the fugitive suspect in the BNI Bank fraud worth IDR 1.7 trillion, Maria Pauline Lumowa from Serbia.

Maria Pauline Lumowa is the person most wanted by the Indonesian government. The reason was that the woman was a suspect in the cash burglary case at the Kebayoran Baru branch of BNI 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.