Nivell Rayda – Several activist groups on Sunday urged the Anti-Corruption Court to summon 11 people to testify in a bid to unravel the alleged attempt to frame two deputies from the Corruption Eradication Commission.
The groups said the commission, known as the KPK, should not to allow the Attorney General's Office determine the fates of deputy commissioners Bibit Samad Riyanto and Chandra M Hamzah, and that the trial of graft suspect Anggodo Widjojo might resolve the legal quandary surrounding the case.
Anggodo is currently on trial for attempting to bribe Bibit and Chandra with Rp 5.1 billion ($555,000) to drop a graft investigation into his brother, Anggoro Widjojo, who has since fled to Singapore. However, the National Police and AGO insist the KPK deputies had extorted Anggodo.
Dadang Trisasongko, an anticorruption expert at the Partnership for Governance Reform, said two findings, one from the Constitutional Court and the other from the presidentially appointed team known as "the team of eight," contradicted the police and AGO's stance on the case.
"From these two findings, there is already enough proof that law enforcers tried to undermine the KPK by framing two of its deputies," he said. "The KPK's presence is not liked by the other law-enforcement agencies because it threatens to unravel their corrupt practices."
On Nov. 3, more than 60 wiretapped recordings of conversations between Anggodo and several law-enforcement officials were played at the Constitutional Court, revealing an alleged plot to fabricate a bribery case against the KPK deputies. The hearing was televised live across the nation and caused a widespread public outcry.
The team of eight, after having interviewed those involved in the extortion investigation into Bibit and Chandra, ruled that there was not enough evidence to charge the pair with any criminal offense.
"There has been a distortion of the legal arguments used by the police and the AGO," said Eryanto Nugroho, executive director of the Center for Law and Policy Studies (PSHK). "The attorney general failed to adhere to the team of eight's recommendation to halt the case based on its weak legal grounding."
Following the intense public outcry, the AGO last November dropped the case against Bibit and Chandra on the grounds that pursuing it would be "sociologically harmful." The Jakarta High Court, upholding a lower court decision, this month ruled the AGO's reasoning was not recognized by law and ordered the case to proceed.
Dadang accused the AGO of deliberately mishandling the case. "It was a time bomb made to weaken the KPK and make it dependent on the AGO," he said.
The AGO last week said it could still lodge a judicial review with the Supreme Court over the High Court ruling, but Febri Diansyah, a researcher at Indonesia Corruption Watch, dismissed the proposed move as "a waste of time" because the termination of the case was still legally weak.
Febri added that judges at Anggodo's trial should summon those involved in the wiretapped recordings, including National Police investigator Sr. Comr. Farman, a former deputy attorney general, Abdul Hakim Ritonga, and the former deputy attorney general for intelligence, Wisnu Subroto, to clarify the situation.
Eight recordings are said to involve Anggodo and Farman. In one of them, Farman allegedly tells Anggodo to change his testimony to make it fit with the chronology of the extortion case. The transaction with Bibit "couldn't have happened on the 10th because it was a Sunday," one of the recordings says.
Meanwhile, some of the recordings suggest that Wisnu assured Anggodo that he would be a victim of extortion, and therefore could not be charged. Wisnu has admitted that he received a Mercedes-Benz sedan from Anggodo, but said that he purchased it from the businessman.
As many as 24 recordings are said to involve Ritonga. In a conversation between Ritonga and a suspected case broker, Ong Yuliana Gunawan, the latter reportedly asks: "Where should I send these two boxes of durian?"
It is speculated that "durian" was a code for bribes, although Attorney General Hendarman Supandji has insisted that she was referring to the actual fruit.
Ritonga resigned from his post after the recordings were released, while Wisnu was already retired at the time. Farman remains at the National Police.
On Nov. 26, the Constitutional Court declared that the extortion case against Bibit and Chandra had been fabricated, spurred by the bitter rivalry between the KPK and the National Police and AGO.
Tensions between the law-enforcement agencies had been high since the KPK arrested and prosecuted former National Police Chief Rusdiharjo for embezzlement during his time as Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia, and former senior prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan for receiving bribes.