Ina Parlina, Jakarta – In the latest scandal exposing the corruption that plagues the judiciary, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Friday detained and charged a low-ranking Supreme Court staffer with graft after he was caught red-handed accepting Rp 100 million (US$9,700) bribe from a lawyer.
The KPK accused Djodi Supratman of receiving a bribe in connection with a case handled by the country's highest judicial institution.
His case adds to a long list of judiciary members arrested for committing the crime that they are supposed to fight against.
Djodi was caught on Thursday at around 12:15 a.m. while riding an ojek near the National Monument, Central Jakarta, only meters from the Supreme Court. The KPK also named lawyer Mario C. Bernardo of Hotma Sitompul legal office after it took him from his office on Jl. Martapura, Central Jakarta, on Thursday at around 1:20 p.m. KPK investigators confiscated more than Rp 100 million in cash from Djodi. Before the arrest, Djodi went to Mario's office and left the building at around 11:30 a.m. with a bag of money.
KPK spokesman Johan Budi said the bribery was allegedly linked to a fraud case implicating businessman Hutomo Wijaya Ongowarsito. The fraud case was filed to a cassation panel at the Supreme Court on April 9, upon request from prosecutors. According to the Supreme Court's website, the case was currently in process.
Djodi is merely a staff member of the general affairs unit at the Supreme Court's training center in Mega Mendung, Bogor, West Java. According to Supreme Court spokesman Ridwan Mansyur, Djodi, a grade 3C civil servant with a salary between Rp 3-4 million a month, "cannot handle cases".
Johan said the KPK was still investigating the involvement of other officials, including justices, in the case, as Djodi as a low-ranking official may have acted purely as a middleman.
Judicial Commission chairman Suparman Marzuki said the case only confirmed the belief that many people were playing around with our law enforcement. "The trust in our law enforcement has been destroyed," he said.
The Supreme Court said it would not hinder the KPK's investigation into the case. "We are leaving it to KPK. We fully support the KPK," Ridwan said.
He admitted difficulty in monitoring thousands of staff and judges, saying his office had boosted their efforts to create a clean judiciary. "Here we have so many staff members. We have around 8,700 judges, 12,000 staff members and around 864 working units across the country," he said.
Djodi is the seventh Supreme Court official to be charged with bribery since 2006, when the KPK arrested Supreme Court clerk Pono Waluyo who helped a lawyer in an attempt to bribe former Supreme Court chief justice Bagir Manan in business tycoon Probosutedjo's case.
Earlier this week, KPK named former ad hoc graft judge Asmadinata as suspect in the case only two weeks after he became the first ad hoc corruption judge to be sacked by an ethics panel after he was found guilty of a breach of ethics for having dinner with two other judges to discuss former Grobogan legislative council speaker M. Yaeni, a defendant in a corruption case he was handling.
Two other judges – disgraced Semarang Corruption Court ad hoc judge Kartini Marpaung and Pontianak Corruption Court ad hoc judge Heru Kisbandono – are now in jail for accepting bribes to acquit Yaeni of corruption charges.