Bibit, Chandra attend hearing after release from detention

Dicky Christanto ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 11/05/2009 11:53 AM  |  National

The two suspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy leaders spent their first day out of police detention attending various events, including a hearing at the Constitutional Court.

The National Police released the KPK deputies, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah, in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

However, the police said the deputies were still considered suspects in alleged authority abuse and bribery cases.

Bibit, for example, after a few hours' sleep, went directly back to the National Police's Mobile Brigade detention center in Kelapa Dua, Depok, where he had spent two days as a detainee.

It was reported that Bibit went back to the detention center in order to pick up some of his clothes.

"Just to pick up some of my old clothes," he said, as quoted by detik.com news portal Wednesday.

Around an hour after Bibit leaving, his colleague Chandra arrived at the detention center located in the Mobile Brigade headquarters.

Apparently, Chandra was there for similar reasons to Bibit, which were to collect his belongings.

Bibit and Chandra were detained at the Kelapa Dua detention center after being detained for one night at the National Police headquarters .

From Kelapa Dua, both Bibit and Chandra attended a hearing at the Constitutional Court.

There they spent more than two hours hearing testimony from expert witnesses.

While attending the hearing, Chandra was frequently questioned about a threat he had received while he was in detention, but he declined to comment. He just smiled pleasantly at the journalists who asked the questions.

"We will come to that later," he said.

It was widely reported that Chandra had received death threats while he was in jail. He was threatened with death if he dared to continue fighting his case.

The Constitutional Court heard tape recordings of wiretapped conversations Tuesday featuring high-ranking law enforcers believed to be key players in a corruption saga.

In one part of the recording, there was a threat that Chandra would be "killed on the inside".

So far, Chandra has not given any indication whether he wants to file a report to the police about this or not.

The moment Bibit and Chandra were released by the police was an emotional one as dozens of activists and national figures were there to support them. They had waited for more than two hours in order to see Bibit and Chandra freed.

The KPK deputy leaders were released shortly after midnight and went to the KPK office where they received a warm welcome from the KPK interim leadership and other antigraft activists.

The National Police deputy detective chief Insp. Gen. Dikdik M Arif Mansur said the KPK leaders were detained because the police were concerned the deputies might disrupt the ongoing investigation by making too many public statements.

"We were exercising our right to detain those whom we felt could jeopardize the ongoing investigation," Dikdik said.

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