Nivell Rayda – Former members of the Team of Eight said on Wednesday that they were confident that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would accept the fact-finding team's recommendation to halt criminal investigations into two leaders of the country's anticorruption body.
The team was set up after the National Police arrested Bibit Samad Riyanto and Chandra M Hamzah, deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), for alleged abuse of power and extortion.
Massive public outrage over the arrests swept the nation and the pair were released early this month but all charges and investigations against them have yet to be dropped.
At the end of the team's term on Tuesday, it submitted a 31-page report recommending the National Police and the Attorney General's Office drop the case, after determining that police had no hard evidence to sustain criminal charges against Bibit and Chandra.
Team member Hikmahanto Juwana said on Wednesday that he was confident Yudhoyono would accept and implement the team's recommendations.
"The president made a very positive response when he read the report. I was sure right then and there that the president shared the same view as the team," he said.
Another indication of Yudhoyono's support for the team's recommendation was the disclosure of the report to the media.
"The president said that the report was not for his eyes only. With the recommendations and findings made public, the president has a moral [obligation] to the public to make sure that his cabinet members follow the recommendations," Hikmahanto added.
Analysts and critics had been skeptical after Yudhoyono announced that he would wait until Monday to decide whether or not to follow the team's recommendations, which included the dismissal and demotion of several high-ranking law enforcement officials.
The team discovered that senior law enforcers may have pressured their subordinates to charge Bibit and Chandra and that a possible conflict of interest had been the root cause of the case. KPK has had a bitter relationship with the Police and the AGO after having successfully prosecuted several senior officials from the two institutions.
"This led to investigators fabricating testimony, to construct a case that didn't exist in the first place," Hikmahanto said, pointing to the recordings played before the Constitutional Court in which businessman Anggodo Widjojo attempted to fabricate testimony so that Bibit and Chandra appeared to have solicited Rp 5.1 billion ($546,000) in bribe money from Anggodo's brother, fugitive Anggoro Widjojo.
Former team spokesman Anies Baswedan refuted views from several analysts that the formation of the team was merely to appease public outrage.
"The skirmish between the KPK and the National Police caught the president's attention and on [Oct. 31] the president summoned several legal experts for our assessment on the battle, because the credibility of the legal system was at stake," he said.
Yudhoyono held a limited cabinet meeting to discuss the team's recommendations on Wednesday.