Febrie Adriansyah's Pretrial Motion Rejected Again, Money Laundering Suspect Status Upheld
Sole judge at the South Jakarta District Court, Richard Edwin Basoeki, has rejected the pre-trial motion filed by former Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes, Febrie Adriansyah, against the Attorney General’s Office.
Judge Edwin affirmed that the designation of suspect status in the money laundering case carried out by the team of nine, up to the detention of Febrie, was legally valid.
“Adjudicating, in the substance of the petition: rejecting the petitioner’s pre-trial motion in its entirety,” he said while reading the verdict on Friday (28/8).
In his considerations, Edwin stated that the letter designating Febrie as a money laundering suspect, numbered TAP-03/F/Fd.2/07/2026 dated 24 July 2026, contained a series of actions by Febrie carried out from 2018 to 2026.
The judge stated that determining the entire timeframe and elements of Febrie’s actions was a matter for the main case and therefore not within the purview of a pre-trial hearing.
“Considering that the suspect designation letter mentions a series of actions between 2018 and 2026, the timeframe under investigation therefore spans before and after the National Criminal Code came into force,” he said.
Accordingly, the judge stated that the argument regarding trading in influence raised by Febrie was a matter for evidentiary proceedings in the main case.
He emphasised that a pre-trial hearing may not declare such actions proven, but also cannot annul a suspect designation merely by extracting one descriptive term from the overall construction of the letter.
Furthermore, the judge assessed that the Attorney General’s Office had found at least two pieces of valid evidence before designating Febrie as a money laundering suspect.
However, the judge stated that whether the alleged corruption serving as the predicate offence and the truth of the money laundering flows were matters for evidentiary proceedings in the main case.
“The respondent has at least two pieces of evidence that are relevant to the alleged predicate offence, assets and the petitioner’s involvement,” the judge said.
Furthermore, the judge stated that Febrie’s detention had fulfilled the objective requirements regarding the criminal threat alleged in the suspected criminal acts committed by Febrie, in accordance with Article 100 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
He stated that one of the reasons for Febrie’s detention was information or statements during examination that, according to investigators, did not correspond with facts discovered through examination of witnesses, documents and other evidence.
However, the judge stated that a pre-trial hearing does not assess whether the statements made by Febrie correspond with the facts, but only assesses the legality of the detention order. The judge stated that Febrie’s detention order also mentioned the fulfilment of two pieces of evidence as the basis for the suspect designation.
“Considering that the judge only assesses that the basis used by investigators to carry out the detention falls within one of the categories of detention reasons explicitly recognised by Article 100 paragraph 5 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” the judge said.