Farouk Arnaz & Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta – A member of the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force and corruption suspect Gayus Tambunan are now apparently in disagreement over how much Bakrie companies allegedly paid the rogue taxman in bribes.

Gayus was recently quoted in media reports as denying that he said most of his ill-gotten wealth came from Bakrie companies. In response to a journalist's question about the supposed statement, Gayus reportedly said: "It's Ota who said that. Bakrie only paid $3 million. After that, there's no more. I forget where all the money [in my accounts] came from."

Ota is Mas Achmad Santosa, the member of the task force who, along with another member, Denny Indrayana, fetched Gayus from Singapore when the taxman was a fugitive.

Golkar Party lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo on Tuesday said the statement was a clear indication that the case had been politically manipulated to attack his party and its chairman, Aburizal Bakrie, whose family owns Bakrie Group.

"For us, it's now clear who lies behind the Gayus case. We will question the task force's dirty jobs during our meeting with the National Police chief next Monday," Bambang said.

"We are considering filing for the right of interpellation [formal request] to question the task force. The president must explain to us why the task force had gone too far in legal manipulation."

But Achmad on Wednesday stood by his statement, denying allegations that he pushed Gayus to confess that he was bribed by the Bakrie companies. "I only repeated what Gayus told to us when we were in Singapore [in March]," he said.

When Achmad first made the statement, Gayus was only believed to have amassed around Rp 28 billion ($3.1 million) in illegal wealth. In June, police found several safe-deposit boxes linked to Gayus – eight were empty, but one held Rp 74 billion in foreign currency and gold ingots.

Gayus has twice claimed in court to have received bribes from 149 companies, including miners Kaltim Prima Coal, Arutmin and Bumi Resources, all of which are part of the Bakrie Group. The companies have all denied the claims, calling them defamatory.

In October, Denny testified that Gayus mentioned the Bakrie companies in particular after he was apprehended in Singapore. Denny said he had recordings of his conversations with Gayus and had handed them to police, but prosecutors said they were not included in the evidence list.

On Nov. 11, Achmad testified in court that Bakrie Group companies bribed Gayus. "The information is not from me, I only cited what Gayus had told me," Achmad said on Wednesday of the testimony.