Heru Andriyanto – Prosecutors on Tuesday said they had no knowledge of the whereabouts of former antigraft czar Antasari Azhar's laptop, which contains classified information on major corruption cases.
The laptop was among the items seized by police from Antasari's office at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) when he was named a murder suspect in 2009.
However, when the South Jakarta District Court on Tuesday went to return evidence used in the trial against Antasari, the laptop was not among the items.
"We took out [24] items from the evidence locker to be returned to the owners," Yusuf, South Jakarta chief prosecutor, said to journalists. "The laptop is not on the list."
Maqdir Ismail, an attorney for Antasari, regretted that the computer was still nowhere to be found. "The computer has nothing to do with the murder case, so it should have been returned in first place," he said.
Maqdir said police seized the computer and documents from Antasari's office during their investigation into the March 2009 murder of businessman Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, for which he was later found guilty, but the computer was not included in the evidence list during the trial.
"We have officially asked the KPK to return the computer to Antasari but the agency replied that the computer was taken by police and never returned," Maqdir said.
"The computer is very important because it holds the recorded conversation between Antasari and Anggoro Widjojo," he added, referring to the widely publicized conversation apparently used to initiate criminal charges against KPK deputies Chandra M. Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto.
Reports said that the computer also holds information about alleged graft in the purchase of information technology equipment by the General Elections Commission (KPU) for the 2009 election.
Attorney General Basrief Arief has previously said that prosecutors only handled items of evidence from police and the computer was not included when police officially handed the suspect, the case documents and the evidence to prosecutors.