The Supreme Court of Jakarta sentenced a local businessman to 10 years in prison over a corrupt arms deal last November.

Irfan Kurnia Saleh was convicted of bribing a General involved in procuring a €30m luxury helicopter that Indonesia’s military did not need.

The aircraft, an AgustaWestland AW101, is sold by UK-Italian defence giant Leonardo, which has headquarters in London and Rome.

Indonesia’s justice system only convicted Saleh, but several other names appeared in the court papers reviewed by Shadow World Investigations and IrpiMedia.

These include that of Lorenzo Pariani, the then head of Leonardo’s helicopter division for South-East Asia, and Indonesian air force General Agus Supriatna.

Neither Pariani, nor Leonardo, were directly implicated in the Indonesian investigation, and no related case has been instigated in Italy or Britain.

Similarly, serving military personnel like General Supriatna fall outside the jurisdiction of Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which brought the case against Saleh.

However, by speaking to sources familiar with the case in Indonesia, we have pieced together new evidence which suggests Saleh was not acting alone – and that Leonardo could also bear some culpability.

All our sources requested anonymity due to the systematic oppression in Indonesia of those who expose institutional misconduct.

My kingdom for a helicopter

General Supriatna ordered the procurement of the helicopter in 2015, hoping to showcase it at a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Indonesia’s air force.

The AW101 is a powerful aircraft, equipped with three engines rather than two. It was presented as a potential game-changer for the Indonesian air fleet due to its ability to fly over thousand-metre-high mountains.

When the helicopter tender opened, General Supriatna contacted Saleh, a long-time friend he knew dealt in Leonardo helicopters.

Saleh, as indicated in court documents, then contacted Pariani at Leonardo, who mentioned having an AW101 helicopter available from a previous controversial, corrupt tender in India a few years prior.

General Supriatna and Saleh met with Mohammad Syafei – then assistant budget planner at Indonesia’s air force headquarters – as reported by the KPK investigation.

The initial procurement aimed to acquire a brand new VVIP AW101 helicopter, a model designed specifically for the transport of important passengers.

Its interior was intended to resemble that of a luxury aircraft, featuring leather upholstered seats with a planned capacity of at least ten.

The deal was to be concluded for 514.5 billion rupees – equivalent to just over €30m.

Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo objected, arguing that the country did not need a new helicopter – but General Supriatna was determined to proceed with the purchase.

In an attempt to justify it, Supriatna modified the chopper’s specifications, portraying it as essential for search and rescue (SAR) operations instead of solely for the transport of VVIPs.

According to an investigative source, the General successfully approached members of parliament in 2016, persuading them to divert funding to the purchase.

The revised price amounted to approximately €44m million euros; €13.5m more than the original.

Of this sum, €23.4m was directed to AgustaWestland, €11m to Saleh, just over €8m to Leonardo, and €1m to General Supriatna.

During the deal, AgustaWestland and Leonardo were in the process of merging into one company, 30% owned by the Italian government and 1% owned by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund.

Emergency landing

The helicopter deal started to unravel when the commander of Indonesia’s army – a rival of the air force – became aware and instructed the responsible parties to cancel it, in accordance with the president’s directive.

However, Saleh, General Supriatna and Leonardo ignored the order.

In late January 2017, the helicopter arrived at Halim military airport, near the air force’s headquarters.

Following an inspection by aviation experts it was clear that the helicopter was not the one that had been requested: it still adhered to the VVIP specifications and not the SAR configuration.

Most notably, it lacked a side opening that would facilitate the entry and exit of stretchers during rescue operations.

The air force therefore refused delivery, resulting in the middleman, Saleh, suing them.

Though the court initially agreed with Saleh, civil and military investigations that started in February 2017 complicated the picture.

According to a source close to the civil investigation, a military acquittal was a foregone conclusion.

They argued: “The military continue their activities undisturbed because they know they will not be prosecuted; they feel untouchable behind a jury of their peers who will never affirm guilt: the whole system is based on corruption.”

In 2019, the charges against the military were dropped and to date there are no suspects among General Supriatna and his staff.

The case only gained public attention due to the involvement of the then-army commander Gatot Nurmantyo.

Sources on the ground suggest that Nurmantyo had political ambitions; with elections looming in 2019 he sought to establish himself as an anti-corruption champion to enhance his chances of winning the presidency.

However, his ambitions were unfulfilled and following Jokowi’s re-election the investigation into the military’s involvement in the helicopter deal was laid to rest.

‘Guarantee’

The civil trial was more thorough. From the initial investigations by the authorities, irregularities in the tender began to surface.

The original tender explicitly required the helicopter to be brand new and equipped with SAR specifications, “but what has arrived is second if not third-hand,” claimed sources in Indonesia.

Indeed, comments from the court’s technical experts suggest that the helicopter is far older than its stated age.

The model is said to be the same one that AgustaWestland (Leonardo Helicopter’s old name) previously attempted to sell to India’s air force.

India’s contract for 12 VVIP AW101 helicopters was cancelled due to a corruption scandal involving several members of Leonardo, then trading as Finmeccanica.

When the issue of the technical specifications had been raised by Indonesia’s air force, Saleh contacted Leonardo to certify that the details were correct.

In an email dated 17 February 2017, obtained by Saleh’s defence, Leonardo’s Lorenzo Pariani himself claimed that the helicopter met the Indonesian requirements and that the model was entirely new.

This ‘guarantee’ was insufficient to prevent a fraud investigation against Saleh, General Supriatna and other members of the air force.

Following initial investigations, the €11m that Saleh allegedly obtained from Leonardo for the transport of the helicopter and future maintenance components, was frozen.

Conversely, the €1m allocated to General Supriatna, was considered insufficient to evidence corruption in the process.

‘Commission fees’

In Indonesia, there is an extraordinary practice called dana komando, a term that translates to ‘commission fees’.

It is a practice whereby the initial price is increased by a certain percentage so that the military can get their ‘money’s worth.’

In some cases, this increase is even documented in official army records.

According to Karel Susetyo, then an assistant to General Supriatna, dana komando serves as a simple means of financing for the military, particularly for the air force, which has faced dwindling financial resources in recent decades.

Furthermore, the Indonesian military often accommodates mithras (‘friends’ or ‘partners’) – essentially companies and organisations that have strong financial ties to it.

It is normal for government-affiliated public figures to hold interests in various private companies, a practice that many local and international NGOs condemn as a conflict of interest.

“Having extra money helps them to continue their activities outside the military,” Susetyo suggests.

A different opinion is held by another source close to the investigation, who believes that the practice is illegal under Indonesian law and symbolises the still too recent past in which the military acted as masters under the regime of the dictator Suharto.

“Dana komando is corruption, it is taking money away from the state for personal gain. It is illegal but everyone knows that it happens among the military when it comes to procurement”, the source said.

“In this case there was an initial agreement between the parties to set the price even before the sale, so that everyone would get the interest they hoped for.”

The prosecution estimated that the state’s damages from the processes during the tender were about €13m, in addition to the helicopter’s original price.

It was only later during the trial that the judges acknowledged that the helicopter delivered could still serve some purpose and reduced the calculated excess sum to €1m.

This amount corresponds to what General Supriatna allegedly obtained as a ‘tax’ from the tender budget, and somewhat explains the outcome of the military’s investigations.

What remains

At Halim military airport, the helicopter stands idle, locked in one of the hangars overlooking the runway.

To date, it has made no flights but still required maintenance, incurring further expenditure.

Serious questions remain regarding the involvement of Leonardo’s representatives in the corruption.

“To be able to do business in a country you have to know the context, and Leonardo knew it extremely well, often communicating with Irfan Kurnia [Saleh],” a source in Indonesia said.

Saleh was in jail for 18 months awaiting sentence. In his cell, with shorter hair, he looked tired, worn down by years of the trial and left to fend for himself.

Only his family and lawyers can see him. His lawyers argue that no harm was done to the state and that the helicopter can still be used.

However, in November 2023 he was sentenced to ten years in jail and a number of his properties were confiscated to compensate the state.

Saleh tried to contact Leonardo for their support during the trial multiple times.

“A letter with the company’s technical opinion on the helicopter could strengthen the defence in court and convince them of the suitability of the vehicle obtained for Indonesia,” said Andreas Tobing of Saleh’s legal team.

Yet, to this day, no response has come from the company. Tobing expressed anger about his client’s predicament: “It seems they have abandoned him. In a corruption case, is it possible that there is only one person convicted? The deed is done by at least two people.”

What about Leonardo’s Lorenzo Pariani? In the Indonesian court papers, it explicitly states that Pariani would have been aware of the payment made to Leonardo, which the judges claimed to be illicit.

However, this information was deemed insufficient to launch investigations against him, both in Indonesia and in Italy.

The Leonardo Group managed to earn around €23 million from the sale of a second-hand helicopter, leaving the litigation and legal wrangling to the people on the ground whom it had hired.

A Leonardo spokesperson told us: “Leonardo does not comment on the news about the criminal proceedings conducted by the Indonesian judiciary. Leonardo is in no way involved in such proceedings, nor has its personnel ever received any judicial act from the local authorities.”

The company specified that the “supply of the helicopter was duly carried out in accordance with the procedures established by the competent Authorities of the country, through the acceptance of the product by the Indonesian air force at the beginning of 2017”.

In addition, the company “has strong business relations with Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia when it comes to helicopters for governmental and private use. These activities are carried out in full compliance with both national and international regulations, and in strict application of the compliance principles defined by the company”.

So, Leonardo’s suspect business practices continue apace, reflecting the reality that arms exports account for around 40% of all corruption in global trade.