Maria Pauline Lumowa goes to the decision hearing of her corruption case at the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court on May 24,2021 (BeritaSatuPhoto/Joanito De Saojoao)
BY: BAYU MARHAENJATI
MAY 24, 2021
Jakarta. The Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court on Monday discovered Maria Pauline Lumowa guilty of corruption and cash laundering and sentenced her to 18 years behind bars for a significant bank embezzlement case back in 2003.
Maria, 62, has moved residencies in other nations because she ended up being suspect nearly 18 years ago up until the Serbian government extradited her at Jakarta request last July.
She was implicated of embezzling around $200 million after accepting loans from state-owned bank BNI using forged files.
” The defendant will get a criminal sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rp 800 million or at the same time an additional 4 months in jail if she fails to pay,” Presiding Judge Saifudin Zuhri informed the hearing.
In addition, the panel of judges orders her to repay the state Rp 185 billion in damages within a month after her guilty decision is last and binding.
Otherwise, her individual wealth will be taken by state district attorneys.
” If the offender’s wealth is not enough to repay the debt, she needs to serve another seven years in prison,” the judge said when reading out the verdict.
In reaction, Maria said she would take a week time to think about an appeal.
District attorneys have demanded a sentence of 20 years in an earlier hearing.
Law officials have said Maria was apprehended by the Interpol when she checked out Serbia in July last year, based on a red notice issued by Indonesian authorities in December 2003
The extradition was a mutual action by the Serbian federal government after Indonesian authorities agreed to extradite data theft found guilty Nikolo Iliev to Serbia in 2015.
She was implicated by Indonesian authorities of embezzling loans totaling $136 million and 56 million euros released by BNI between October 2002 and July 2003.
Indonesian private investigators declared that she had utilized phony “letter of credit” to get the export loans for mining and plantation company Gramarindo Group, which she co-founded with Adrian Waworuntu.
Adrian has actually been condemned of the same case and sentenced to life in prison.
BNI became suspicious in June 2003 and ran an examination, just to find that Gramarindo Group had never engaged in export sales.
The state bank reported the case to the National Cops but Maria had already gotten away the nation. She resided in Singapore in September 2003, a month prior to police called her corruption suspect.
In 2009, Indonesian authorities learned that she had actually moved residence to the Netherlands. The federal government requested her extradition to the Dutch government two times, in 2010 and 2014, however to no get.
Maria has actually held the Dutch citizenship since1979
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