Yeremia Sukoyo – The Attorney General's Office has been urged to take a hard line on corruption suspects by issuing travel bans and detaining them during investigations.
"The AGO shouldn't compromise with any corruptors," Emerson Yuntho, an activist with Indonesia Corruption Watch, said on Wednesday. "Suspects have to be banned from traveling, and if need be, they should be detained to prevent them from fleeing."
He said that if the suspects were eventually convicted, prosecutors should seize their assets as compensation for the losses incurred by the state as a result of their crimes. He added this measure would also prevent them and their families from laundering the money.
However, Emerson said the AGO often chose not to detain suspects and only started looking for them once they had fled.
ICW data showed that in the first six months of 2013 alone, up to 54 people remain at large despite being convicted of graft. The watchdog said that some had escaped, but most had gone on the run.
ICW said the AGO had been too soft in dealing with graft suspects, especially when compared to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
Emerson pointed out that in prosecuting graft suspects, the KPK had an almost 100 percent conviction rate, while the AGO's conviction rate in corruption cases was as low as 60 percent.
"Almost all the cases brought to trial by the KPK end in a guilty verdict," he said. "Meanwhile, the AGO can only manage conviction rates of 60 percent to 80 percent when prosecuting corruption suspects. That means that a large number of suspects walk free. In some extreme cases, the AGO has even dropped cases entirely."
He added that the AGO should adopt the KPK's methods of dealing with suspects to prevent them evading justice.
Achyar Salmi, a legal expert from the University of Indonesia, said cooperation between law enforcement agencies should be improved to prevent graft suspects and convicts from escaping.
"What needs to be improved is the coordination in the legal enforcement system, which involves investigators, prosecutors, courts and penitentiaries," Achyar said on Tuesday.
He said that under the legal system, the four elements comprised one unit and that coordination evaluation was needed due to the fact that many graft defendants had fled the country before a court had issued a binding verdict. Achyar said law enforcers should maximize the use of their detention facilities and lock up all graft suspects throughout the investigation process.
"If many have fled, it's better to just detain them. If not, they won't learn any lesson. Law enforcers can also maximize the use of their detention facilities to hold the corruptors," Achyar said.
He added that besides maximizing the use of detention facilities, law enforcement officers must also investigate how suspects and convicts were able to go into hiding, whether overseas or within the country, adding that if many had fled overseas, coordination with the immigration department should also be improved.
Last week, officers arrested Anung Nugroho, the former director of an East Kalimantan coal mining company, who was named a fugitive in April for his involvement in the divestment case of Kaltim Prima Coal, a unit of Indonesia's biggest coal producer, Bumi Resources. Anung was arrested at a hotel in Solo, Central Java.