Jakarta – A new showdown is brewing between the House of Representatives and the Attorney General's Office, this time over the decision to charge a human rights campaigner with graft.
The South Sulawesi prosecutor's office has declared Achmad Ali, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, as a suspect in a Rp 250 million (US$27,000) graft case.
Deputy chairman of House Commission III on law and internal security Azis Syamsuddin said the commission would summon Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh to explain the situation.
"We take this case seriously as it concerns the country's top law-enforcement authority, which has made an arbitrary decision against one of the country's top legal experts," Azis, a member of the Golkar Party, told a press briefing Thursday after receiving a complaint from Achmad.
The House and Abdul Rahman locked horns earlier this month over the latter's decision to dismiss Jakarta Prosecutor's Office head Rusdi Taher.
Achmad met with a number of lawmakers to complain about the graft case. "My presence here is just to convey the message that if a legal expert like me can be treated in this way, what about the little people?" he said.
The law professor at Hasanuddin University in Makassar, South Sulawesi, was named a suspect by South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office head Masyhudi Ridwan on Sept. 2, while he was taking a recruitment test in Jakarta for the position of Supreme Court justice.
He is accused of misappropriating state revenue from the university's postgraduate program while he was acting as dean of the law school from 1999 to 2001. He is also accused of embezzling tuition fees.
Achmad, who is also a member of the Commission for Truth and Friendship, was named a suspect without ever being questioned about the case. He has maintained his innocence, arguing that he was not in charge of the university program in question.
The rights campaigner said the corruption allegation was an insult to his intelligence. "I was insulted twice. First I was accused of being involved in a graft case; second I was accused of misappropriating only Rp 250 million. It's too little money – it will barely be enough to pay my lawyers," Achmad said.
Achmad was once touted as a candidate for attorney general himself. A number of lawmakers said the graft case may be politically motivated.
"We suspect that the South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office is desperately building a weak case against him to deal a blow to his candidacy as a Supreme Court justice," said lawmaker Arbab Papruka of the National Awakening Party.