Nadiem's Legal Team Compactly Absent, Chromebook Case Hearing Postponed
The legal team of former Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nadiem Makarim collectively failed to attend the hearing in the alleged corruption case concerning the procurement of Chromebook laptops and Chrome Device Management (CDM) today. The judge postponed the session due to this absence.
Today’s agenda for Nadiem’s hearing was the examination of witnesses or expert witnesses presented by Nadiem and his legal team. However, none of Nadiem’s lawyers were present in the courtroom at the Central Jakarta District Court.
“As per the schedule that has been determined and agreed upon between the Public Prosecutor and the defendant as well as the legal counsel, today is the agenda for examining witnesses or experts to be presented by the defendant or the legal counsel. However, as per the determined schedule for today, we the Public Prosecutors have attended, but the legal counsel did not,” said the prosecutor at the Central Jakarta Corruption Court, Wednesday (22/4/2026).
The prosecutor stated that Nadiem was already in the court’s detention room. However, the prosecutor said Nadiem was in poor health.
“Very well, today we have scheduled the opportunity for the defendant or the advocate to propose witnesses or experts. Now, the legal counsel has not appeared in court up to this point?” asked the chief judge of the panel, Purwanto S Abdullah.
“The defendant is present in the detention below, Your Honour, but none of the advocates have appeared,” replied the prosecutor.
The judge then called a doctor from the South Jakarta District Prosecutor’s Office to examine Nadiem. The doctor opined that Nadiem was still able to undergo the hearing today.
“From my perspective, he is still capable of attending the hearing, Sir. For today,” answered the doctor.
The panel of judges decided to postpone the hearing until Monday (27/4) due to the absence of Nadiem’s legal team and his health condition. The judge hoped for professionalism from Nadiem’s legal team.
“With the hope that we also expect professionalism from the fellow advocates to attend, of course with these postponements, the panel of judges will determine the stages of the trial. Thus, we postpone to Monday, 27 April 2026, for the opportunity for the defendant or the advocate to propose witnesses or experts. The hearing is declared closed,” said the judge.
In this case, Nadiem is charged with corruption related to the procurement of Chromebook laptops during his tenure as Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. The project is said to have caused state losses of Rp 2.1 trillion.
The prosecutor stated that the calculation of state losses of Rp 2.1 trillion comes from the overpricing of Chromebooks amounting to Rp 1,567,888,662,716.74 (1.5 trillion). Then, the procurement of unnecessary and unbeneficial CDM amounting to USD 44,054,426 or equivalent to approximately Rp 621,387,678,730.00 (621 billion).
Besides Nadiem, there are three other defendants in this case. They are Sri Wahyuningsih as the former Director of Primary Schools at the Directorate General of Early Childhood Education, Basic Education, and Secondary Education in 2020-2021, Mulyatsyah as the former Director of Junior High Schools at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology in 2020, and Ibrahim Arief (IBAM) as a consultant for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology during Nadiem’s era.