Heru Andriyanto – National Police efforts to make criminal charges stick to two Corruption Eradication Commission deputies were highly inconsistent, antigraft activists said on Thursday, and the case had proceeded despite the obvious lack of evidence.

"The commission's deputies, Chandra [M Hamzah] and Bibit [Samad Rianto], were first declared as suspects for abuse of power, but that charge was very weak because it mainly concerns the internal procedures of the commission [also known as the KPK]," said Danang Widoyoko, head of Indonesia Corruption Watch.

"So police later added a bribery charge against them, based on testimonies from Ary Muladi and former commission Chairman Antasari Azhar. But the two have recently retracted their testimonies, leaving police with no legal standing to defend the bribery claims.

"And today, police detained the two deputies for speaking to the press while they are suspects." The National Police, Danang added, seemed to have backup plans to corner Chandra and Bibit when other efforts failed.

The activist said the police detention of the two deputies was "very reckless" because it came at a time when public doubt about police claims was growing, particularly with the widespread publication of transcripts of wiretapped conversations indicating a plot to fabricate a case that would bring down the two deputies.

"This is a big concern to us. The police are unable to convince the public that they have a strong case against the two, and their claims of evidence and testimonies are now in question," Danang said.

"The recording, if authentic, shows an exposed scenario of prosecutors and police targeting KPK officials." He said any case against KPK officials should be treated very carefully because they were in a compromised position. According to the law, KPK officials must be suspended once they become criminal suspects and permanently dismissed if they are charged.

Zainal Arifin Muchtar, a legal expert from Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University, said the measures against the deputies ran counter to the country's anticorruption drive.

"Until today, no one knows for sure what the police meant by abuse of power and there is no clear indication that the deputies have accepted bribes from anyone," he said.

"Police have the authority to detain a suspect facing a sentence of at least five years in jail if they fear that the suspect would repeat the crime, destroy evidence and flee justice.

"But Chandra and Bibit must be treated differently because they have been suspended from office so that they can't repeat the so-called abuse of power, and they can't destroy evidence because police have taken all of the relevant documents."

The reasoning that both men had to be detained because they spoke to the media and stirred public opinion that could mislead the ongoing investigation was, according to Zainal, ridiculous.

Police have kept an eye on the KPK since its Antasari was detained on May 4 because he was implicated in a murder case. Not long after, it was revealed that the National Police chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, had been wiretapped by the KPK in relation to his handling of the Bank Century fraud case.

In one wiretapped conversation, Susno allegedly asked for payment from a Century customer who was eager to withdraw his funds from the ailing bank. Susno publicly chastised the KPK for spying on him, and Chandra and several other KPK officials were summoned by police for questioning.

Susno flew to Singapore in July to meet with fugitive graft suspect Anggoro Widjojo, with media speculating that the visit was designed to collect evidence to implicate Chandra and Bibit.

The deputies were named suspects on Sept. 15 for what police said was abuse of power in inconsistently imposing a travel ban on Anggoro, who was president of troubled company PT Masaro Radiokom, while lifting the ban from wanted graft convict Djoko Tjandra.

But Taufik Basari, a lawyer for the two suspended KPK deputies, said police had apparently ignored the fact that the commission was one of several state agencies granted the right to request travel bans be issued or withdrawn by the Immigration Office.

Police later said the deputies were suspected of taking bribes from Anggoro, based on testimony given by a middleman identified as Ary Muladi, who claimed he handed the money himself to the deputies. Police also secured a taped conversation in which Anggoro discussed bribe money for the deputies with Antasari.

But Ary retracted his testimony on Oct. 13, saying the payment claim had been fabricated under instructions from Anggodo Widjojo, the younger brother of Anggoro. Antasari soon followed, saying he was not sure if his former deputies had ever taken money from Anggoro and that he had been forced by police to change the his testimony to support the charges.

The team of lawyers for the deputies later claimed that the KPK was in possession of wiretapped conversations involving a senior official from the Attorney General's Office, Anggodo, a lawyer and a number of unidentified figures.

The transcripts of the recordings have been widely circulated by the media and have caused public uproar because they indicate a plot to fabricate a criminal case against the deputies.

Former AGO deputy for intelligence, Wisnu Subroto, did not deny that he was the official in some of the recorded conversations, but he said that he was friends with Anggodo and they would often chat over the phone – although he had forgotten about what topics.

In one recording, the purported voice of Wisnu was said to have instructed several witnesses in the case how to testify against the deputies. Wisnu, who retired from the AGO in May, also mentioned in the recording that another AGO deputy, Abdul Hakim Ritonga, might handle the case.

However, after the police forwarded their case to the AGO, it has since been handled by the AGO deputy for special crimes, Marwan Effendy.