JAKARTA: An Indonesian court ruled on Tuesday that one of the country’s leading tech entrepreneurs, Nadiem Makarim, was guilty of corruption during his tenure as education minister and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
The Jakarta Corruption Court also fined Nadiem, who served as education minister from 2019 to 2024, one billion rupiah ($55,870) and ordered him to pay $809 billion rupiah ($45 million) in restitution, or serve an additional five-year prison term.
His case is linked to the education ministry’s procurement of more than a million Google Chromebooks, to be used by students for remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In one of Indonesia’s most highly publicized corruption trials, prosecutors accused Nadiem of overpaying for laptops and software and ignoring internal evaluations. They argued that he was trying to enrich himself with the decision to purchase Chromebook laptops, which resulted in about $120 million in state losses.
The 41-year-old, who has pleaded not guilty, said that he will appeal the verdict immediately.
