Abdul Khalik, Jakarta – Responding to the war on corruption launched by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the National Police and the Attorney General's Office (AGO) have decided to prioritize several graft cases in the first 100 days of the new administration.
National Police director of the corruption crimes division, Brig. Gen. Indarto, said on Thursday that investigators would concentrate on finishing the case files for the alleged corruption cases involving Karaha Bodas, Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh and Bank Swansarindo as well as question former attorney general MA Rachman. "We must concentrate on cases that we can resolve in the next 100 days. In the meantime, we are still trying to gather evidence in other cases," said Indarto.
Police suspect that there were markups by the Texas-based Karaha Bodas Company at a geothermal plant in Garut, West Java. They have named former head of Pertamina's geothermal division Priyanto, his aide Syafei Sulaiman and American Robert D. McCutchen of KBC as suspects for their alleged roles in fictitious transactions and cost markups in the project, which may have cause billions of rupiah in state losses. Indarto said police were now trying to fulfill requests in the case file returned by prosecutors.
In Puteh's graft case, which has reportedly cost the nation Rp 30 billion, police have yet to gather hard evidence to link the Aceh governor with the case. William Taylor, a local businessman, is the only suspect so far in the case. Previously, he had been questioned by the Aceh police. His testimony led the police to Puteh.
Another corruption case involving Bank Swansarindo, now known as Bank Persarikatan since it was acquired by several individuals from the country's second largest Muslim association Muhammadiyah, was recently made public by the police. "We have yet to find suspects in the case that has caused Rp 60 billion in state losses," said Indarto.
In the case of alleged corruption by former Attorney General MA Rachman, he was accused of failing to include a luxury house and a number of bank accounts on his income report to the government's wealth audit commission. However, the police could not proceed with the case before because former president Megawati refused them permission to interrogate Rachman. "We now have a schedule to interrogate MA Rachman after we review his case," Indarto said.
However, many much bigger cases were not mentioned by the police, the Rp 20.9 trillion Account No. 502 case and the Rp 900 billion government commodity regulator (Bulog) fiasco. Th Bulog case centers around embezzlement of surplus subsidy funds. Police investigators declared seven suspects in 2003 but they were forced to release them due to their failure to submit solid evidence to the prosecutor's office.
Even more confusing was the way in which the police handled the Account No. 502 case. They had once named several high-ranking officials from Bank Indonesia, the now-defunct Indonesian Banking Restructuring Agency (IBRA) and individuals from private companies, but later denied ever having declared them suspects.
The Attorney General's Office has also been concentrating on a few relatively medium-profile cases to resolve in the next 100 days.
AGO spokesman RJ Soehandojo said that they were preparing to bring Adrian Waworuntu, a key suspect in the Rp 1.7 trillion BNI scandal, to court as soon as possible while announcing that they intended to prioritize other cases, such as the Rp 3.8 billion markup allegation at PT Angkasa Pura II and the Rp 2.2 billion graft case involving the regent of Pontianak, West Kalimantan.
Some of the high-profile cases that have been halted or have been idle for some time at the AGO, include the graft case involving Regional Representative Council (DPD) chairman Ginandjar Kartasasmita and the more than Rp 120 trillion Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support Fund (BLBI) embezzlement case. Neither of those cases were mentioned on Thursday.