North Sumatra Senior Prosecutor Warns Karo District Prosecutor Over Amsal Sitepu Case Fallout
JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The Head of the North Sumatra High Prosecutor’s Office (Kajati Sumut), Harli Siregar, has issued a warning to all prosecutors in his jurisdiction to be more cautious in handling cases in the future.
Harli’s subordinate, the Head of the Karo District Prosecutor’s Office (Kajari Karo), Danke Rajagukguk, and his team have recently caused trouble by implicating videographer Amsal Sitepu in a case of mark-up in a village profile video production project.
Harli himself was even drawn into the matter and summoned to the DPR Building in Senayan, Jakarta, on Thursday (2/4/2026). Harli was initially unable to secure a flight ticket to Jakarta, but he eventually managed to arrive in the capital.
“Our presence here is at the invitation of Commission III of the DPR, and we are certainly very grateful to Commission III of the DPR. This serves as a forum to carry out supervisory functions. Many things were discussed earlier, and for us, these are very valuable inputs for making improvements,” Harli said at the DPR Building on Thursday.
He also urged the prosecutors in his region to think more holistically.
“It was also conveyed that the current trend is no longer purely retributive, but more towards restorative, rehabilitative, and so on,” Harli explained.
“Therefore, we greatly appreciate and respect the supervisory functions that have been provided. And in line with those recommendations, we will report to our leadership and certainly implement those recommendations for improvements,” he added.
The case stems from a village profile video production project in Karo Regency that led to legal proceedings.
During the 2020 to 2022 budget period, Amsal offered video production services to several village governments in Karo Regency.
Through his company, CV Promiseland, he submitted proposals to 20 villages in four sub-districts: Tiganderket, Tigabinanga, Tigapanah, and Namanteran.
In the 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 involved mark-up.
From the analysis by auditors from the Karo Regency Inspectorate, the video production cost was deemed to be around Rp 24.1 million per village. This was because they viewed that services such as editing, cutting, and dubbing should be valued at Rp 0.