The Mishandling of the Febrie Adriansyah Case

The handling of a suspected corruption case involving Febrie Adriansyah is marked by a power struggle among some presidential aides. Prabowo fails to resolve the matter through legal means.

THE investigation into an alleged bribery and extortion case involving the former Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes, Febrie Adriansyah, appears to be moving away from public expectation that the case would be fully uncovered. The competing interests of the police and prosecutors, coupled with President Prabowo Subianto’s disregard for the law, have plunged the legal process into disarray.

Searches conducted by the National Police’s Corruption Eradication Corps at 13 locations resulted in Febrie Adriansyah and Don Ritto, an advocate, being named suspects on Saturday, July 11, 2026. The police found 74 kilograms of precious metals and nearly half a trillion rupiah in cash, suspected to have originated from extortion and bribery linked to three cases.

Many believe the police have acted hastily. Febrie was named a suspect without being questioned. Concerns arose that this premature process could easily be overturned by a pre-trial motion.

Through political negotiations led by the President, the police turned the case over to the Attorney General’s Office. This decision clearly violates the principle of separation of functions in the criminal justice system. As the preliminary investigators, the police should have completed the case file and submitted it to the AGO for review. Only after it was declared complete (P21) should the police have transferred the suspects and evidence to the AGO so that prosecutors could draft an indictment for trial.

Diverting a case mid-stream, besides disrupting the statutory order of criminal procedure, fuels suspicion that an “under-the-table” deal has taken place. One indication of this is the AGO immediately halting data collection to investigate irregularities in thousands of police-run kitchens under the government’s free nutritious meal program—potential corruption that the AGO had previously said they would expose.

The muddled investigation into Febrie’s case is inextricably linked to the maneuvering of a number of elites within Prabowo’s inner circle. In the lead-up to the naming of the suspect, Tempo uncovered a series of meetings held at Prabowo’s residence to devise a legal scenario for Febrie.

During those meetings, Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and Attorney General Sanitiar Burhanuddin struggled to convince the President that Febrie not be named a suspect, or at the very least that his case should not be turned over to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)—a new complication that Febrie’s defenders would have to face. Sjafrie and Febrie have a long-standing close relationship through their roles as Chair of the Steering Committee and Executive Chair of the Forest Area Enforcement Task Force, respectively.

The chaos intensified as several lawmakers threw their weight behind the National Police. Spearheaded by Habiburokhman, the Chair of the House of Representatives (DPR) Legal Affairs Commission and Gerindra politician, they called for Febrie’s dismissal and even planned to form a working committee to oversee the case handling. 

This maneuver triggered suspicions that the actions of the Senayan politicians were initiated by House Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, who is known to be close to the police. As a result, the public was once again convinced that the vortex surrounding Febrie’s case was nothing more than a new battleground in the old feud between Dasco and Sjafrie.

The President would be rightly denounced if he does not take a stand in favor of law enforcement. This feud among the President’s aides is not being managed so as to achieve effective governance, but rather to create dependency on the President. Another analysis suggests that the President is not fully in control of the situation. In Febrie’s case, all he has done is to ensure that the mess would not splash back onto his own face. 

One alternative is turning Febrie’s case over to the KPK. While not ideal, as the KPK includes prosecutorial and police personnel, it maintains relative independence from both institutions. Without this separation from the police and the prosecutor’s office, the investigation will not discover who was at fault and what really happened. This will only fuel public cynicism about their rivalry and mutual fault-finding. It is a way for them to abuse the law to launch attacks and as a political bargaining chip.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine

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