Mining corruption case in Indonesia sparks misinformation about death penalty

Published on January 22, 2025 at 03:04
3 min read
By AFP Indonesia

As Indonesian prosecutors prepared to appeal the jail sentence of a high-profile businessman which critics said was too lenient, an edited video has been shared with a false claim that it shows President Prabowo Subianto saying he will be executed. The original clip actually shows Prabowo announcing a hike in luxury goods tax. A legal expert has also told AFP the president does not have the power to hand down the death penalty.

"Prabowo takes cruel action! The people involved in the 300 trillion rupiah ($18 billion) corruption case will be sentenced to death in Nusakambangan!" reads the Indonesian-language text overlaid on a TikTok video on January 4, 2025.

Nusakambangan Island refers to the location of high-security prisons in Central Java.

The clip included an image of what appears to be Prabowo addressing the media while Harvey Moeis -- the businessman convicted in the case -- stands beside him, wearing a pink prisoner vest.

"Harvey Moeis' story is over!! Prabowo is angry!!" reads another overlaid text in the video.

Screenshot of the false post, captured on January 14, 2025

Harvey was charged with corruption and money laundering for brokering and profiting from an illegal mining deal in a state-owned company's concession, which prosecutors said resulted in the government losing 300 trillion rupiah (archived link).

Harvey was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison on December 23, 2024, and asked to pay 210 billion rupiah ($13 million) to compensate for the state's loss (archived link).

He was also fined an additional one billion rupiah ($61,000).

The Attorney General's Office said it would appeal the sentence since it is significantly shorter than the 12 years prosecutors had sought, while critics said the "short sentence" did not reflect the severity of the case (archived links here and here).

The image has also been shared alongside similar claims on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

But it is in fact fabricated by combining two pictures.

Doctored image

A combination of reverse image and keyword searches on Google found one of the pictures was a screenshot from a video published by the Indonesian presidential office's official YouTube channel on December 31, 2024 (archived link).

The video shows Prabowo announcing an increase in value-added tax for luxury goods and services.

The image used in the false post matched the ninth-second mark of the video.

Further reverse image searches found Harvey's picture seen in the false post was cropped from a photo published by Bloomberg on April 7, 2024 (archived link).

The photo's caption said it was from the attorney general's public relations office released in March 2024.

Below are comparisons of the false post (left), the video from the presidential office's YouTube account and the photo published by Bloomberg (right):

Comparisons of the false post (left) and the video from the presidential office's YouTube account and the photo published by Bloomberg (right)

Indonesia allows the death penalty in corruption cases, but certain conditions must be met (archived link).

Diky Anandya, a legal researcher at Indonesian Corruption Watch, told AFP on January 16 that the law "requires that someone's action that harms state finances must be done during a crisis or disaster" before capital punishment is allowed.

While Prabowo has said -- without mentioning Harvey's case explicitly -- that those convicted of corruption should be sentenced to 50 years in jail, Diky explained the president does not have the power to hand convicted felons any sentence (archived link).

"Imposing criminal law falls under the authority of the judicial institution, through the judge who examines and handles the case," he said.

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