Nadiem Makarim Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Chromebook Corruption
The panel of judges at the Corruption Court (Tipikor) at the Central Jakarta District Court (PN) has sentenced Nadiem Anwar Makarim to 10 years in prison and a fine of Rp1 billion. The former Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology under the era of Indonesia’s 7th President Joko Widodo was found guilty of corruption in the procurement of Chromebook laptops and Chrome Device Management (CDM) for the 2020-2022 fiscal years.
“Sentencing the defendant to 10 years in prison and a fine of Rp1 billion,” said chief judge Purwanto S. Abdullah while reading the verdict at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Tuesday (30/6). The court declared Nadiem Makarim guilty of the subsidiary charge.
Nadiem was also given an additional penalty in the form of an obligation to pay restitution amounting to Rp809.5 billion. If the restitution is not paid, it will be replaced with an additional 5-year prison sentence.
In handing down the decision, the judge considered several aggravating and mitigating circumstances. The aggravating factor was that the defendant’s actions contradicted the commitment to eradicating corruption and were carried out systematically. The mitigating factor was that the defendant had no prior criminal record.
One member of the panel of judges, Andi Saputra, had a dissenting opinion on the verdict. Andi assessed that the prosecutor’s charges against Nadiem were not proven and believed Nadiem should have been acquitted of all charges in the Chromebook case.
This verdict is lighter than the demand from the Public Prosecutor (JPU) of the Attorney General’s Office, who sought a sentence of 18 years in prison and a fine of Rp1 billion, subsidiary to 190 days of imprisonment. Nadiem was also ordered to pay restitution of Rp809,597,125,000 (Rp809.5 billion) and Rp4,871,469,603,758 (Rp4.8 trillion), which represents the defendant’s assets deemed disproportionate to his legitimate income or suspected to originate from criminal acts of corruption.