TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Pressure mounts for AG replacement
Pressure is mounting for the President to dismiss Attorney General Hendarman Supandji for the latter's alleged failure to fight corruption in his office and boost its credibility
Change Size
Pressure is mounting for the President to dismiss Attorney General Hendarman Supandji for the latter's alleged failure to fight corruption in his office and boost its credibility.
"We can no longer count on the current attorney general. We need a new person with more credibility and a clean track record to lead reform at the Attorney General's Office (AGO)," Emerson Yuntho of Indonesia Corruption Watch said Saturday.
He said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should set up an independent team to monitor the reform process within the AGO and to make sure rules are not flouted.
"It only needs strong political will from the President. After all, he has promised to prioritize the corruption fight," Emerson told The Jakarta Post.
The AGO came under fire after recent Corruption Court hearings revealed connections between bribery trial defendant Artalyta Suryani and three top state prosecutors.
Last week, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) presented taped phone conversations between the businesswoman and Deputy Attorney General for State Administration Untung Udji Santoso.
The conversations were presented to the Corruption Court as evidence against Artalyta, who is on trial for allegedly giving a US$660,000 bribe to AGO prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan.
Artalyta confirmed the conversations, in which Udji told her about an AGO arrest scenario to save her from detention by the KPK following Urip's arrest a few hours earlier.
Two other senior officials, former deputy attorney general for special crimes Kemas Yahya Rahman and former director of special criminal investigations Muhammad Salim, were also implicated in the case.
Yudhoyono has urged Hendarman to take prompt action to address the tainted image of the AGO following the court revelations of systemic corruption within the office.
"The President has recently instructed the attorney general to immediately take important and proper measures to restore people's trust in the AGO as one of the pillars of law enforcement," presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said as quoted by kompas.com in Bontang, East Kalimantan, on Sunday.
Ismed Hasan Putro, who chairs the Professional Civil Society, said Saturday the government should take more extreme measures to reform the AGO.
"The President should take strong actions with this. It's not enough just to show regret and then leave the matter to the attorney general. With the prosecutors no longer credible, the AGO has been tainted," he said.
Ismed said freezing the AGO to reorganize the prosecutors and handing over their tasks to another body would be the most effective way of reforming the legal institution.
Denny Indrayana, a legal expert from Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, said the government should make sure whether Hendarman was clearly involved in Artalyta's alleged bribery.
"If they later discover his involvement or that he received money in the case, then the replacement of the attorney general will be an appropriate response," he said.
Hendarman said he will wait for the outcome of Artalyta's trial before moving forward on reform of his much-criticized office.
Artalyta has been linked to tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim, who was one of the suspects in the embezzlement of Bank Indonesia liquidity support (BLBI) funds for commercial banks during the financial crisis of the late 1990s.
The funds were loans extended under the government's blanket guarantee program. Debts of about Rp 51.7 trillion (US$5.5 billion), out of total BLBI loans of Rp 144.5 trillion issued since 1997, have been bad. (dre)
