T

uesday's decision by the Attorney General's Office to drop the graft cases against two leaders of the KPK, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah, does not mean Ari Muladi, an alleged middleman in the case, is a free man as well.

The National Police said here Wednesday they would continue investigating Ari, a suspect in the case, as they believe he had broken the law.

"We are still working on the case and are not planning to issue any letters to drop our investigation into this particular case," Brig. Gen. Yovianes Mahar, director of the anti-corruption desk at the National Police headquarters, told The Jakarta Post Wednesday.

He said the police would immediately submit Ari's dossiers to the prosecutors as they had finished gathering evidence.

"We are now waiting to conduct a joint analysis of the case with prosecutors so that the case can be brought immediately to court," he said.

Ari Muladi was a close friend of Anggodo Widjojo, the younger brother of Anggoro Widjojo, a fugitive in a graft case investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

According to Anggodo, Anggoro gave Rp 5.1 billion (US$540,000) to Ari, who was supposed to pass it on to the KPK leaders so that his brother's case would be dropped.

Ari, however, denied he ever met Chandra or Bibit let alone gave them money. Instead, he said, he gave the money to Yulianto, who is now on the run.

The police named Ari a suspect because if he did not give the money to Bibit and Chandra then he must have taken the money for himself.

However, despite naming Ari a suspect for allegedly taking Anggoro's money, the police also named Bibit and Chandra suspects for receiving the same money.

The police even submitted the dossiers of the two KPK leaders to the AGO, claiming they had gathered enough evidence to bring the pair to trial.

Earlier, due to public pressure, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono established a team to verify if the police had applied the correct articles and if it had enough evidence to press charges.

Based on Ari's confession, the team declared that the police had weak evidence as there were no witnesses confirming Bibit and Chandra ever received money from Anggoro.

The team recommended that the President demand both the AGO and police drop their investigation into the two KPK leaders.

Despite the team's recommendation, the AGO said both cases were ready to be brought to the court as the police had compiled all of the evidence.

After continued public outcry, Yudhoyono spoke publicly, saying it would be better if the cases were settled out of court.