Irawaty Wardany, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Sat, December 13 2008, 11:21 AM
The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) requires its own detention facility to ensure detained corruption suspects cannot intervene in the investigation process, a KPK official says.
"We need our own specific detention center to ensure detainees do not violate procedures and, for example, make phone calls from cell phones. Such acts interfere with the investigation process," KPK Director of Prosecution Feri Wibisono said in Jakarta on Friday.
Currently, the KPK detains its suspects in the National Police center or in state penitentiaries.
The anti-graft body transferred five suspects -- Mohammad Sukarna and Kurniawan Roebadi, former Indonesian consuls in Kinabalu, Malaysia, Mas Tata Mahrun, former head of communications, economics, social and cultural division at the Kinabalu consulate general and Irsayfli Rasoel and Makdum Tahir, immigration officials at Indonesian consulates general in Kuching and Tawau City, respectively -- from the National Police detention center to Cipinang penitentiary on Thursday.
"The police's detention center was full, therefore we needed to transfer some of our detainees to other facilities. It is permitted and does not violate detention procedures," The KPK Deputy for Investigation Ade Rahardja said.
The five are suspects in a case involving the embezzlement of immigration fees between 1999 and 2005.
They allegedly submitted income tax reports based on lower immigration fees while charging higher fees to visa applicants at the Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia. They subsequently embezzled the Rp 11.7 billion generated from the crime.
Ade said the cases for the five suspects had reached a point where they could be prosecuted.
He said ideally the KPK would perform more efficiently if the detention center was closer to, or even integrated with the KPK office, so that the questioning process could become more straightforward.
"To date we have not established such a center as the development would require budgeting and planning," said Ade.
Irsayfli's lawyer, Djufri Taufik said he and his client accepted the transfer as it was a matter of policy, however he considered the policy discriminative.
"There is no clear procedure surrounding the transfer. The KPK was supposed to transfer detainees who have been convicted by a court, while my client is yet to be convicted," he said.
