Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – Although not counting out the possibility of an independent team to probe the National Police chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, the National Police Commission said Tuesday it needed to consult first with the police chief on what option to take on the case.
"We had a meeting this afternoon and we came up with several options to settle this problem, but first we need to consult the options with the police chief because it is related to his institution," commission member Adnan Pandu Praja told The Jakarta Post here Tuesday.
Asked whether the option included the establishment of the independent team, Adnan only said "various options are available".
Lawyers for suspended KPK deputy chairmen, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah came to the the police commission Monday, and asked for an explanation from the police inspectorate regarding their report on a decision made by Susno naming the two KPK deputies as suspects in a power abuse and bribery case.
Both Bibit and Chandra are accused of violating their power by removing travel bans from corruption suspect Anggoro Widjojo and convict Djoko S. Tjandra, who are now at large.
They were later accused of receiving bribes from Anggoro, even though some key witnesses had withdrawn their testimonies against Bibit and Chandra.
Activists and anticorruption watchdogs suspected the criminalization of the two deputies was Susno's way of taking revenge against the commission, after he was wiretapped by the KPK during its probe into the Bank Century graft case.
The Indonesian Anticorruption Society (MAKI) also reported Susno to the inspectorate and the President on allegations of power abuse during his mediation between Bank Century and Budi Sampurna, who had attempted to retrieve his US$18 million in savings from the ailing bank.
However, the inspectorate announced last week that it found no indication of Susno's wrongdoing in the mediation.
A lawyer for the KPK deputy chairmen, Taufik Basari, said he could understand the police commission's response regarding their proposal of the establishment of an independent team to probe the police commissioner. "Its duty is only to give recommendation to the President and the police chief regarding the police reform," he said.
However, Taufik expected the commission could have directly given recommendations to the President without consulting with the police chief to avoid a conflict of interest. "Giving recommendations directly to the President would not exceed its authority anyway," he said.
He also revealed he and his team had filed for a judicial review with the Constitutional Court on Article 32 (1) c of the 2002 KPK law that allows KPK chairmen to be discharged if they defend criminal charges.
"We consider the article is discriminative because other state officials can only be discharged if the court convicts them," he said.
He added the article also violated the presumption of innocence principle because those defending charges were not necessarily guilty. "They can be proven innocent at the court. Besides the article is prone to be used to overthrow KPK chairmen. That is why we filed for a judicial review of the article".