Aggravating Factors Leading to Ibam's 4-Year Sentence: Corruption in Chromebook Procurement During Covid-19

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The panel of judges at the Jakarta Corruption Court stated that the impact of the alleged corruption in the procurement of Chromebook-based laptops during the Covid-19 pandemic was one of the aggravating factors in sentencing former technology consultant Ibrahim Arief, alias Ibam.

“The defendant’s actions were carried out in the education sector during the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in a double impact: financial losses to the state and the obstruction of equitable quality education for Indonesian children,” said Chief Judge Purwanto S Abdullah during the trial at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Tuesday (12/5/2026).

In its verdict, Ibam was sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of Rp 500 million.

The panel also highlighted the massive state losses of Rp 4.6 trillion caused by the Chromebook procurement project in the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.

Furthermore, the judges assessed that Ibam’s actions did not support the state’s efforts to realise clean governance free from corruption, collusion, and nepotism.

“The defendant’s actions do not support the state’s programme for clean and corruption-free governance, free from collusion and nepotism,” he stated.

Nevertheless, the panel of judges also considered several mitigating circumstances for the defendant.

One of them is that Ibam has never been convicted before.

The panel also took into account Ibam’s position, described as only providing technical input as a technology consultant and not the main policymaker in the procurement project.

“The defendant was in the position of a technology consultant providing technical input and not as the main policy designer in the Chromebook IT procurement, so the degree of the defendant’s structural role differs from that of public officials who set strategic policies,” said the judge.

Additionally, the judge stated that Ibam was not proven to have received direct fund flows from the Chromebook IT procurement project.

In its verdict, the panel also imposed court costs on the defendant.

“Considering that the defendant has been found guilty, he is also sentenced to pay the court costs, the amount of which will be determined in this verdict’s operative part,” said the judge.