he South Jakarta District Court has rejected a pretrial motion filed by former education minister Nadiem Makarim, who challenged his suspect status in a corruption case pertaining to the procurement of Chromebook laptops at the then-education, culture, research and technology ministry.
Judge I Ketut Darpawan, the sole judge handling the pretrial motion, dismissed Nadiem’s petition during the ruling hearing on Monday.
“The court rejects the petitioner’s pretrial motion and imposes no additional costs,” the judge said in a live-streamed hearing at the South Jakarta District Court on Monday.
The pretrial petition, lodged by Nadiem in late September, challenged the validity of the Attorney General’s Office’s (AGO) decision to name him a suspect in alleged graft in the procurement of Chromebook laptops to be distributed to schools nationwide between 2019 and 2022, during Nadiem’s ministerial term.
Nadiem’s lawyer Hana Pertiwi previously argued that the AGO did not have sufficient preliminary evidence to name the former minister a graft suspect, including an official audit report of projected states losses from the Supreme Audit Board (BPK) and the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP).
But in his ruling, Judge Darpawan said the AGO’s process in investigating Nadiem followed legal procedures.
“The naming of Nadiem as a suspect was based on at least two valid pieces of evidence as mandated by Article 184 of the Criminal Law Procedure Code [KUHAP]which means the defendant can use its authority to detain the plaintiff,” the judge said.
