Witness says Bob Hasan causes 'no state losses'

Witness says Bob Hasan causes 'no state losses'

JAKARTA (JP): A witness implied at the Central Jakarta
District Court on Thursday that the company of defendant Muhamad
"Bob" Hasan had never taken photographs for a government-funded
mapping project in 1996, but claimed that it caused no state
losses.

The former chief of the Forestry Ministry's photographic
evaluation team, Ishak Sumantri, said that he not only accepted
thousands of old photographs, some of which were taken in 1992,
from Hasan's company PT Mapindo Parama (MP) for the project, but
recommended the use of the pictures.

"Some of the photographs were technically good, not that bad.
So, we accepted them," Ishak told the panel of judges presided
over by Subardi.

"We paid the defendant's company in full and to my knowledge,
the defendant has not caused any losses to the state."

Chief prosecutor Arnold Angkouw had earlier questioned why
Ishak, who coordinated the photographing work and the mapping,
accepted the pictures which were taken before the US$87 million
project was signed in 1996.

"You knew the photographs were old, some dating back to
1992 ... Such photographs have markings on the edges, indicating
the time and date the photo was taken.

"The photos your team received, had the edges cut out. Why did
you accept them?" Arnold said.

The then ministry of forestry used reforestation funds to
finance the project upon advice from Ishak's team. The ministry's
former secretary-general Oetomo later accepted the recommendation
and disbursed the reforestation fund.

Prosecutors have charged Hasan with defrauding US$75.62
million in state funds, and another $168 million belonging to the
Indonesian Forest Concessionaires Association (APHI) through the
fraudulent aerial mapping project.

Ishak said that he knew the project was put down in a work
agreement dated July 31, 1996, signed by Oetomo and MP director
Herman Hidayat.

The agreement, he said, stated that the project involved the
aerial photographing and mapping of 30.6 million hectares of
protected forest, and that the ministry was to pay the
defendant's company, $2.94 per photographed hectare, which
included mapping charges.

Photographing charges alone, he said, cost $1.40 per
photographed hectare.

Before Ishak, the Thursday hearing heard the testimony of
Ahmad Ricky, an expert from the photo laboratory of the Bandung
Institute of Technology (ITB), who said that the laboratory had
received up to three trucks of aerial photographs of protected
forests, from MP and the forestry planning board of the ministry
of forestry. (ylt)