Heru Andriyanto – An unusually high number of complaints and scandals involving public prosecutors reflected the poor leadership of the Attorney General's Office, the head of the Commission for Public Prosecution said on Sunday.
"The series of scandals involving district and provincial prosecutors is an indication of the AGO's poor system," said Amir Hasan Ketaren, chairman of the National Commission for Public Prosecution.
The transfer of the head of the Banten prosecutors' office to another job last week was just the latest in a string of embarrassments involving the AGO, which is struggling to rebuild its reputation after a major bribery scandal last year involving one of its own officials. As a result of the scandal, the senior AGO official was sentenced to 20 years in jail.
"So far this year, we have received reports about bad prosecutors in North Jakarta, West Jakarta and Banten," Amir told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday. "Under previous AGO leadership, we never received as many complaints as we do with the current attorney general. The leadership at the AGO is just so weak."
The Banten transfer coincides with the controversial trial of Prita Mulyasari, a mother of two, for allegedly defaming Omni International Hospital. Other scandals involving district and provincial prosecutors around the country have also tainted the AGO's reputation.
Chief Banten prosecutor Dondy Soedirman was moved to a lower position after he approved the arrest of Prita, who was freed this month after the public outrage over her detention for three weeks at the Tangerang women's prison.
Although Attorney General Hendarman Supandji has described the prosecutors' handling of the case as "unprofessional," the AGO has refused to link Dondy's transfer to the Prita case.
"I can't say if the replacement has anything to do with the ongoing trial," AGO spokesman Jasman Panjaitan said over the weekend. "It's not a demotion because Dondy will remain as a second ranking official in his new post and in fact he is not the only official who has been moved to a different post at this time."
However, Dondy's job transfer came just a few days after an AGO supervisory team questioned him over the defamation case. The defense team for Prita has alleged that prosecutors who handled the case accepted bribes from the hospital. Her detention caused a media uproar and came after an incident when the AGO rejected a police request for the detention of two female district prosecutors in North Jakarta who were accused of stealing over 300 Ecstasy pills from an evidence locker and attempting to sell them for personal gain. But the Jakarta prosecutors' office rejected the police request to extend the detention of Esther Tanak and Dara Veranita on the grounds that their March 23 arrest was made without the approval of the attorney general.
The Esther and Dara remain free although police have charged them with drug crimes.
Last month, the AGO disciplined two district prosecutors in West Jakarta for another controversial drug case in which prosecutors recommended a sentence of only one-and-a-half years for the defendant.
Sultoni, who led the prosecution team against drug trafficker Gunawan Tjahjadi, was fired as after the defendant was controversially sentenced to only one year in jail by the West Jakarta District Court in the Feb. 18 hearing and prosecutors failed to imprison the man as he fled after learning of his conviction.
Although Gunawan was finally arrested on April 19, the trial triggered another uproar with media reporting Sultoni had allegedly accepted at least Rp 5 billion ($495,000) in bribes, a report immediately denied by the AGO.
Suparno, the assistant for general crime at the West Jakarta prosecutors' office, has been denied a promotion for one year as punishment for his role in a similar scandal.
In October last year, the AGO fired a district prosecutors' office head in Gorontalo after he insulted police.
In a taped phone conversation, the prosecutor said "when it comes to corruption cases, prosecutors are smarter than police. Police are all stupid." The recording prompted a red-faced Hendarman to make a personal apology to National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri.
The attorney general launched an internal reform in the wake of the bribery scandal that landed a record 20-year jail sentence last year for AGO prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan for taking a $660,000 bribe from a businesswoman who sought to influence the handling of a major embezzlement case involving business tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim.
Two of Hendarman's deputies were also demoted after the court played taped phone conversations between the two and the businesswoman discussing the embezzlement case. However, the two deputies have never been charged.
Under the reform program, AGO officials are strictly banned from personally meeting suspects or witnesses who are facing legal cases being handled at the office.
As of the end of May, the AGO had disciplined 245 prosecutors and non-prosecution officials for various charges, ranging from absence without leave to bribery to taking a second wife.
Serious disciplinary sanctions have also been imposed on 93 officials with punishments ranging from dismissal to demotion.