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🇮🇩 Indonesia /Crime & Justice

Yaqut Trial Witness Says Hajj Law Does Not Clearly Regulate Additional Quotas

From CNN Indonesia · () Indonesian

Translated from Indonesian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources In the courts
  • Ahmad Bahiej testified that Indonesia’s 2019 Hajj and Umrah law divides the national quota into 92% for regular pilgrims and 8% for special pilgrims but does not clearly regulate additional quotas.
  • He said a 2023 ministerial decision divided an additional quota of 20,000 places equally between regular and special Hajj pilgrims.
  • The testimony came in the corruption trial involving the alleged misuse of additional Hajj quotas in 2023-2024, with former Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas among the defendants.

Indonesia’s Hajj quota rules do not clearly explain how additional places should be divided, a former Religious Affairs Ministry legal official told an anti-corruption court.

Ahmad Bahiej, who led the ministry’s Bureau of Law and Foreign Cooperation from 2021 to 2024, gave the testimony after prosecutors from the Corruption Eradication Commission called him as a witness. He appeared at the Jakarta Central District Court’s anti-corruption court on Thursday in the trial over alleged corruption involving additional Hajj quotas for 2023 and 2024. Former Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas is among the defendants.

Under Law No. 8 of 2019, the national quota, the initial quota, is divided into 92% and 8%. Then there is an additional quota, which is not covered there.

· Ahmad BahiejThe witness explained why he considered the legal basis for additional Hajj quota allocations unclear.

Bahiej said Law No. 8 of 2019 establishes an initial national quota split of 92% for regular Hajj and 8% for special Hajj, but contains no clear provision for an additional quota. When a prosecutor asked whether the allocation was therefore unclear, Bahiej agreed.

It is not clear how the quota is divided.

· Ahmad BahiejBahiej agreed with the prosecutor’s characterization of the law’s treatment of additional quotas.

He described Indonesia’s Hajj quota as comprising regular and additional allocations. Prosecutors also questioned him about Religious Affairs Ministerial Decree No. 1156 of 2023. Bahiej said the decree divided an additional 20,000 places equally, giving 10,000 to regular pilgrims and 10,000 to special pilgrims.

Under the law, the special Hajj quota includes special pilgrims and special Hajj officials. The article states that applying the statutory 92% to 8% ratio would instead have allocated 18,400 of the additional places to regular pilgrims and 1,600 to special pilgrims, raising the regular quota from 203,320 to 221,720.

Yes.

· Ahmad BahiejHe confirmed that the 2023 ministerial decree aimed to split the additional 20,000 places equally.
About this summary

Originally published by CNN Indonesia in Indonesian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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