Ulma Haryanto – Graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin finally ended his silence on Thursday and submitted his first corruption allegation to antigraft investigators – against one of their own.

Nazaruddin, the former Democratic Party treasurer, claimed he had prepared an undisclosed amount of money, meant as a cut from government contracts worth Rp 7 billion ($820,000), for Chandra M. Hamzah, a deputy chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

"I explained to the KPK ethics committee about the money for [Chandra], when I prepared it, which projects it was from and for what," he told reporters following a three-hour grilling by the committee.

He said the money was linked to a contract to provide the equipment for issuing electronic ID cards, or e-KTP, as well one for providing uniforms for civilian security guards. Both projects fell under the supervision of the KPK. "The contracts' [combined value] was around Rp 7 billion," Nazaruddin said.

However, Abdullah Hehamahua, the ethics committee chairman, said that although Nazaruddin had admitted to preparing a payment of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" for Chandra, he also said he never got around to giving it to him.

"Nazaruddin said the money was never given [to Chandra]. I asked why, and he said that the [uniform] project was cancelled," Abdullah said. He added that the suspect had told the committee that he had twice hosted Chandra at his house, met with him twice at restaurants and once at the KPK office.

"But we asked [Chandra's] aide about this last meeting and checked the visitors' register, but Nazaruddin's name didn't appear," he said. "However, we are going to confirm this one more time."

He added that the floor on which Chandra's office was located was guarded around the clock and all the visitors had to sign a register.

Nazaruddin's allegations came just a day after Yulianis, the former financial head of one of his companies, told the ethics committee that she had been ordered by her boss to hand over money to a person identified only as C.D.R., supposedly from the KPK.

However, she denied ever meeting any of the four KPK deputies or the chairman, Busyro Muqqodas, and said she did not know who C.D.R. was or whether they were actually connected to the KPK. In his testimony on Thursday, Nazaruddin claimed C.D.R. was Chandra.

Nazaruddin, who was captured in Colombia in early August, spent much of his three months on the run leveling graft allegations against former colleagues at the Democratic Party, including chairman Anas Urbaningrum, as well as KPK officials, including Chandra and fellow deputy M. Jasin.

Abdullah said the ethics committee would summon Chandra for questioning in the case on Sept. 19 or 20. Chandra was unavailable for comment on Thursday.