Nivell Rayda – Police were desperately looking for excuses to pin down the Corruption Eradication Commission after allegations that several executives of the antigraft body were taking bribes were later found to be false, a corruption watchdog said on Monday.
Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) suspected that the National Police's move to again summon officials from the commission, also known as the KPK, indicated that police could not find any evidence to support bribery claims put forward by the commission's suspended chief, Antasari Azhar.
Antasari made controversial allegations that several of his colleagues at the KPK were taking bribes from a fugitive businessman, Anggoro Widjaja, while he himself was detained on charges of orchestrating the murder of a state-firm director.
On Friday and again on Monday, police summoned the four active KPK commissioners and several middle ranking officials related to the claims by Antasari, as well as Ary Muladi, the only suspect in the case. Ary is charged with impersonating a KPK officer to solicit bribes from Anggoro and forging a KPK document.
Emerson Yuntho, ICW deputy chairman, said that there were several irregularities in the summons letter.
"The letter says that the KPK commissioners would be questioned in Ary Muladi's case, but then it also indicates that they were questioned for abuse of power," Emerson said.
"Ary's case is about fraud, extortion and document forgery. If it is related to Antasari's claims, the police no longer handle Antasari's case. Antasari is now under custody of the Attorney General's Office," he said. "The KPK had done the right thing by ignoring the summons."
Separately, Bibit Samad Riyanto, the KPK deputy chairman for graft investigation and prosecution, said that the commission would not adhere to the summons until it had received "further explanations on exactly what case police were investigating."
A police source close to the case told the Jakarta Globe that so far there were no signs of involvement by any KPK officials and the National Police chief, Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, had called investigators on Thursday urging them to take whatever steps were necessary to investigate the case.
The police investigations have been hampered by suspect Ary's continually changing claims.
Anggoro reported through his lawyer that he had been extorted by Ary and Eddy Sumarsono, both claiming to be KPK officers. Ary later confessed to fabricating a document and accepting more than Rp 4 billion in bribes from Anggoro, which he said were later given to KPK commissioners.
Ary later admitted that he kept some of the money for himself, but said the rest was given to a KPK executive identified as Edi Rahman, who supposedly received money transfers to his account at PT Bank Central Asia.
A police source close to the case told the Jakarta Globe that police later found that Edi Rahman was not a KPK executive but a lawyer from Surabaya, East Java.
Anggoro fled the country in July last year, after the KPK began investigating his company, PT Masaro Radiokom, over irregularities in the procurement of an integrated radio communications system at the Ministry of Forestry in 2007.