Nivell Rayda – Following the dramatic arrest of yet another Indonesian prosecutor on extortion allegations, the spotlight is again on corruption within the Attorney General's Office and whether the recently appointed attorney general can deliver much-needed reforms.
Dwi Seno Widjanarko, a mid-ranking official from the Tangerang Prosecutor's Office's intelligence unit, was arrested at 9 p.m. on Friday shortly after he received Rp 50 million ($5600) in cash stashed inside a brown paper bag from a Bank Rakyat Indonesia official identified as Feri.
Seno, who was tasked with examining public complaints at the office, allegedly threatened Feri's friend Agus with charges of document forgery and fraud unless he delivered the money.
Adnan Topan Husodo, deputy chairman of leading antigraft watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch, said that since Basrief Arief was appointed to lead the AGO last year, the attorney general had done little to conduct internal reform.
"Instead, he said what his predecessors had done was enough," Adnan said. "Basrief has not ensured that all the loopholes that allow for case manipulations are shut permanently."
Antigraft campaigners greeted Basrief's appointment last November with cynicism as they had been hoping an outsider would be appointed to reform the institution. In response, Basrief, a veteran prosecutor, said during his inauguration that he would prove the skeptics wrong.
"We don't see Basrief as a figure who has a great commitment to removing the rampant practices of graft inside the AGO, or at least someone who pays enough attention to it," Adnan added.
"This case is the tip of the iceberg. In fact, there are reports that corruption is getting worse. I am not at all surprised by this arrest."
Transparency International Indonesia chairman Todung Mulya Lubis, however, said that it was too soon to say that Basrief had failed.
"Corruption inside the AGO is the product of failed reform under the previous administrations," Todung said. "Only time will tell if Basrief is able to conduct the much-needed overhaul inside the AGO."
The AGO has been under fire with allegations of corruption since the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested senior prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan for accepting $660,000 in bribes in 2008.
The money was given to halt an embezzlement case Urip was investigating linked to the bailout funds injected to ailing banks at the height of the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis.
Despite suspicion that other officials were collaborating with Urip, who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison, former Attorney General Hendarman Supandji protected his subordinates, saying "the case ends with Urip."
The AGO was dealt another major blow when senior prosecutors were caught on wiretapped telephone conversations with graft convict Anggodo Widjojo discussing an apparent plot to frame KPK deputies Bibit Samad Riyanto and Chandra Hamzah.
Despite mounting pressure, the AGO refused to dismiss the implicated officials. The officials later resigned.
Zainal Arifin Mochtar, a legal expert from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said Basrief seemed to have the right track record to tackle graft.
"Basrief was the deputy attorney general during the administration of Abdul Rahman Saleh who had a strong stance against graft," he said.
"Basrief has tried to create greater transparency by building an online system. But as far as reforming the structure, establishing an anticorruption culture and regaining public trust, he has done very little."
Zainal said the government can no longer rely on the AGO to conduct reform efforts internally. "The president, as the leader of this country, must drive reform. The president must give external bodies more teeth," he said.
Among the external bodies highlighted by the legal expert was the Prosecutors Commission, which was established in 2005 to counterbalance the AGO and strictly supervise the conduct of prosecutors.
"I have high hopes for the proposed amendment to the law on the Prosecutors Commission. Right now the commission is toothless with no real power to sanction rogue prosecutors," he said. "There is no guarantee that it will not fail, but we should see significant improvement inside the AGO if the law is enacted."