Rizky Amelia – The Corruption Eradication Commission urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to enact a government regulation to give the antigraft body more power to recruit its own investigators and block the premature recall of police investigators on loan to the agency.

The call came after the commission, known as the KPK, revealed on Wednesday that the National Police had made a request to withdraw 13 more police officers from the agency.

"If the president agrees, then the presidential decree will become the most important political decision to tackle problems faced by the KPK, like the premature recall," KPK commissioner Busyro Muqoddas said.

The KPK also requested "the president's aides to remind the president to immediately sign [the decree] because talks have been protracted for two years between the KPK, the Ministry for Bureaucratic Reform and the Attorney General's Office."

The police request to recall 13 of its investigators was made on Friday, threatening to grind the KPK's investigation into several major corruption cases to a halt.

Among the cases investigated by the KPK is one involving the National Police Traffic Corps' procurement of driving simulators, which was allegedly rigged and awarded to an unqualified company, costing the state more than Rp 100 billion ($10.4 million).

On Monday, the KPK arrested former traffic police chief Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo for allegedly receiving bribes linked to the driving simulator procurement, which many said prompted police to retaliate by recalling its investigators.

The National Police had already tried to pull out 20 of its investigators assigned to the KPK but six of them – including Comr. Novel Baswedan, who leads the KPK's investigation team on the driving simulator case – have since opted to join the antigraft body permanently and drop their police affiliation.

Busyro said that Novel had already obtained his KPK permanent status. "Only six of them have not yet converted their status," Busyro said. Novel had been at the center of a tug of war between the police and the KPK after he said he would rather continue to work for the KPK and ignored their pullback.

Police attempted to arrest Novel on Oct 5., arguing that as the Bengkulu Police chief of detectives during June 2004, he was responsible for the death of a thief.

Earlier, the president said that he would give the KPK more power to recruit its own investigators, which critics say would grant more independency in investigating graft cases linked to the National Police.

Yudhoyono also said that he is seeking better ties between the two agencies, saying that he wants police investigators to be stationed at the KPK for a minimum of four years. The current regulation vaguely describes how long the term should be.

"The only thing which can deal with this [situation] is the presidential decree. Hopefully the president will sign the decree soon," Busyro said. "A draft of the presidential decree is already at the president's desk. It has been [in Yudhoyono's hands] for a long time, about a month."