REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Corruption Eradication Commission questions the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Chairman Zulkifli Hasan as a witness in an alleged corruption case related to the revision of a proposal for Riau province's forest conversion in 2014.
The KPK had earlier named Riau province's Governor Annas Maamun as suspect in this case.
"I am here as a witness for Riau province's Governor Annas Maamun," Zulkifli stated.
Annas Maamun was recently caught red handed by the KPK in Jakarta along with several people including a Riau businessman named Gulat Manurung.
The KPK investigators then named him a suspect for allegedly accepting a bribe in connection with the issuance of a license to convert Riau's forest area into plantation, which carries a maximum jail sentence of five years.
The anti-graft commission also named Gulat Manurung, a palm oil businessman, a suspect for allegedly bribing the governor.
Gulat was believed to have offered Annas a sum of money in return for the governor to revise the forest conversion proposal, in which Gulat had 140 hectares of land.
During the recent arrest, the KPK investigators confiscated money worth more than Rp2 billion, including 156 Singaporean dollars and Rp500 million from the suspects.
Annas justified that he had asked for the permit from the then minister of forestry Zulkifli Hasan to convert Riau province's forest area. But, according to the Forestry Ministry's Director for Forest Planning Masyhud, the ministry had never granted permission to Annas Maamun to convert the forest area in Riau province.
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