Jakarta. The Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, said on Thursday it has asked the immigration office to prohibit former executives of state-run oil company Pertamina including former president director Karen Agustiawan from traveling overseas.

The move was taken to support the ongoing corruption investigation into the company’s liquefied natural gas procurement in the past decade, KPK spokesman Ali Fikri said.

“We need testimonies from those persons for whom we asked the travel ban,” Ali said.

In addition to Karen, KPK also requested travel restrictions for Pertamina’s former gas director Hari Karyulanto, former acting president director Yenni Andayani who briefly led the company in 2017, and a businessman identified as Dimas Mohamad Aulia.

Kompas news website reported that Dimas is Karen’s son.

The KPK has not named a suspect in the investigation but it asked the immigration office to prevent the four persons from traveling overseas until December 8.

The news came two years after Karen was acquitted by the Supreme Court of another corruption case.

Karen, in charge of the company from 2009-2014, was earlier accused by the Attorney General’s Office of misusing her authority to make the decision to acquire a participating interest in Australia's Basker Manta Gummy oil fields without prior feasibility studies or risk analyses. 

Karen was slapped with corruption charges when it was discovered that Pertamina failed to earn financial benefits from the agreement after oil block operator Roc Oil Company halted production in the fields on Aug. 20, 2010.

The AGO said the deal was reached without the consent of the company's board of commissioners and legal division, and it eventually caused massive financial losses to the state.

A district court in Jakarta found her guilty of corruption on June 10, 2019, and sentenced her to eight years in prison.

But in March 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that Pertamina's failure to benefit from a 10 percent participating interest worth $31.5 million in oil fields in the Gippsland Basin in the Australian state of Victoria did not inflict a financial loss to the state, resulting in Karen’s acquittal.