Central Jakarta District Court forcibly seized the Hotel Sultan property on Thursday, declaring the site state-owned after 26 years of litigation. Supporters of PT Indobuildco, which operated the property, blocked the courthouse lobby, threw objects at the execution team, and clashed with police, who detained 69 people.
Does This Execution End the Dispute?
The state now controls the land physically. PT Indobuildco is not conceding.
The company immediately mounted a legal counteroffensive: the dispute, it argued, concerned only the land. The building and the hotel business itself remained entirely private.
"What must be understood is that the dispute is over the land, not the building or the hotel business. The Hotel Sultan business is unquestionably owned by PT Indobuildco," said Hamdan Zoelva, Indobuildco's lawyer.
Zoelva raised two objections to the seizure. First, he said the court never established rightful ownership of the property before executing the judgment. Second, he invoked Supreme Court circulars from 2000 and 2001 requiring any party seeking execution to deposit security funds equal to the property's value—a requirement he said was disregarded.
"Perhaps the first execution in our judicial history that violates the law," Zoelva said. The comment signaled that Indobuildco is preparing further legal action, likely a third-party objection or a new lawsuit.
3,161 Security Personnel, 300 Documenters
The scale of the state's mobilization underscored its expectation of resistance. A total of 3,161 military, police, and regional officials secured the site—roughly ten times the roughly 300 people who actually carried out the seizure: teams from the state property management agency (PPKGBK), the State Secretariat, legal representatives, and public appraisers tasked with cataloging the assets.
The court order came from the Central Jakarta District Court's chief judge, based on Execution Order No. 1/Pdt.Eks/2026/PN.Jkt.Pst. Indobuildco received formal notice on May 19—three weeks before Thursday—but chose not to appear.
Two Claims That Never Met
For 26 years, two irreconcilable narratives ran in parallel. The government rested on a single fact: Indobuildco's building rights (Hak Guna Bangunan, or HGB, numbers 26 and 27) were terminated by the Ministry of Land Affairs and not renewed. The state property management agency affirmed that Block 15—freed by the government between 1958 and 1962—was never transferred to any private party.
Indobuildco offered a different reading. Its HGB, it said, remains valid until 2053. Moreover, the Hotel Sultan structure (formerly Hotel Hilton) was built with company funds, not through a Build-Operate-Transfer scheme or government money. The physical assets, therefore, are purely private property. These two positions were never reconciled in a single comprehensive court ruling. Thursday's physical seizure does not change that.
Thousands Await Certainty
Block 15 is now officially state property. Minister of State Secretariat Prasetyo Hadi and Deputy Minister Juri Ardiantoro were present on Thursday; asset management coordination falls directly under the State Secretariat. Indobuildco has been given six months to retrieve its belongings stored temporarily by the state agency.
But thousands of workers, tenants, vendors, and residents of the Hotel Sultan complex remain without clarity on the fate of their contracts and jobs. Legal proceedings against the 69 people detained for throwing objects at the execution team are also ongoing.
Three outcomes will shape what comes next: whether Indobuildco actually files a new lawsuit and how quickly; what labor and rental-rights settlement plan the State Secretariat prepares before the six-month deadline expires; and how the state property management agency plans to use the asset under government property rules. None has been announced.
