Karo District Attorney Explains the Origins of Prosecuting Videographer Amsal Sitepu
The Head of the Karo District Prosecutor’s Office, Danke Rajagukguk, provided an explanation regarding the origins of his office’s decision to prosecute videographer Amsal Christy Sitepu in the case of mark-up in village profile video production projects.
Danke explained that the primary reason Amsal Sitepu was designated as a suspect was the prosecutors’ suspicion of price inflation by the owner of CV Promiseland.
“With permission, here we may not be talking about inflation, but certainly mark-up,” Danke stated during a meeting of Commission III of the DPR at the DPR Building in Senayan, Jakarta, on Thursday (2/4/2026).
However, based on the legal facts obtained in the trial, Amsal carried out the village profile video production activities for less than 30 days.
“Thus, the expert concluded that the rental payment should be in accordance with the duration of the activity implementation,” he said.
Nevertheless, Amsal included budget items for editing, cutting, and dubbing, each amounting to Rp 1,000,000.
“According to the expert, editing, cutting, and dubbing are the same as video production design. Therefore, cutting, editing, and dubbing were considered as losses,” Danke stated.
During the 2020 to 2022 budget period, Amsal offered video profile production services to several village governments in Karo Regency.
Through his company, CV Promiseland, he submitted proposals to 20 villages in four sub-districts, namely Tiganderket, Tigabinanga, Tigapanah, and Namanteran.
In those proposals, the cost for producing the video was set at around Rp 30 million per village.
The legal issue arose when the proposals were allegedly not in line with the actual conditions or experienced mark-up.
It was this value difference that became the basis for the suspected state losses.
In the trial, the prosecutors stated that the state losses amounted to Rp 202 million. However, Amsal’s legal counsel questioned the basis of that calculation.
“This is what we emphasise the most. Where does this Rp 200 million calculation come from,” said Amsal’s legal counsel, Willyam Raja Dev, quoted from Kompas.com on Monday (30/3/2026).
In short, this case attracted public attention. The latest development is that Amsal has been released.