Ethics Panel records Hery Susanto facing 12-14 legal and ethics cases

The Ethics Panel of the Indonesian Ombudsman (ORI) has noted that former Ombudsman chief Hery Susanto is currently facing at least 12 to 14 allegations of legal and ethics violations. Chair of the ORI Ethics Panel Jimly Asshiddiqie stated that 12 cases were reported internally by ORI, while the Attorney General’s Office (Kejagung) reported 14 cases. ‘So, there are more cases from the Attorney General’s Office. However, most of these relate to legal aspects, so we cannot intervene to disclose them,’ Jimly said at a press conference in Jakarta on Friday. He added that legal issues often involve ethical concerns, but a legal violation does not necessarily mean an ethics breach. He cited a case in Nias, North Sumatra, during his tenure at the Election Conduct Ethics Council (DKPP), where a court ruled it a legal matter but not an ethics violation. Thus, Jimly stressed that some legal violations do not constitute ethics breaches, though they are exceptions. ‘However, 99 per cent of legal violations also breach ethics. But ethics breaches don’t necessarily involve legal violations,’ he said. Previously, the Attorney General’s Office named Hery Susanto a suspect in a corruption case involving nickel mining management activities from 2013 to 2025. Director of Investigation for the Attorney General’s Special Crimes Unit (Jampidsus), Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, stated Hery allegedly committed the offence while serving as an Ombudsman commissioner from 2021 to 2026. ‘The suspect designation followed investigators gathering sufficient evidence through a series of investigative actions, including searches,’ he said at the Jampidsus building in Jakarta on Thursday (16 April). In the case, Hery is alleged to have received a Rp1.5 billion bribe from PT TSHI, which began when the company faced issues with the Ministry of Forestry over non-tax state revenue (PNBP) calculations. PT TSHI then conspired with Hery, then an Ombudsman commissioner, to resolve the matter. To facilitate this, he said, Hery received funds from LKM, who is the director of PT TSHI.