Jakarta, Legal Literacy - Former Minister of Trade, Thomas Trikasih Lembong, also known as Tom Lembong, has officially filed an appeal. He rejected the 4 years and 6 months prison sentence handed down by the Jakarta Corruption Court (Tipikor). This decision is related to the corruption case in the 2015-2016 sugar import period. This legal action was filed by his legal advisory team on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. From the start, the defense team was very confident that their client would be acquitted at the appeal level.

Main Points in Defense

According to the legal team, there are several strong reasons for filing an appeal. First, they believe Tom Lembong had no malicious intent (known in law as mens rea). Therefore, they are targeting a purely free decision. The defense team is now preparing an important document called the appeal memorandum. In it, they will explain various irregularities in the judge's considerations. They feel that the decision is not in accordance with the facts revealed in the trial. One of them is that the panel of judges themselves admitted that Tom Lembong was not proven to have received money from this case. In addition, the defense team argued that their client's actions did not meet the elements of criminal corruption. On the contrary, the raw sugar import policy taken by Lembong at that time was claimed to have provided a profit to the state of Rp 900 billion. Another crucial point that will be raised is the fact that the policy was taken on the orders of President Joko Widodo, a fact that they say was ignored by the judge. Meanwhile, the public prosecutor has not decided on an attitude. They still have time to think about whether to file an appeal or not. This is because the judge's verdict is lower than their demands, which is 7 years in prison. On the other hand, criticism of this decision also came from legal academic, Albert Aries. He highlighted the logic of the judge who seemed to punish Tom Lembong for being negligent or not careful. In fact, according to Albert, the Corruption Law strictly requires an element of intent, not just negligence. Therefore, he concluded that without strong and undeniable evidence of malicious intent, an act cannot be considered a corruption crime according to the article used.