Court hears pre-trial against AGO's decision to drop Chandra, Bibit cases

A pre-trial hearing was held at South Jakarta District Court on Monday, to challenge the Attorney General's Office (AGO)'s decision to drop its prosecution of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairmen Chandra M. Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto.

Eggi Sudjana, a lawyer representing several NGOs, said the court must declare the AGO decision invalid because the dossiers for Bibit and Chandra were complete.

“Thus, the AGO must continue its legal processing at the court,” Eggi said as quoted by kompas.com.

The AGO had to drop the case Bibit and Chandra under mounting public pressure regarding the lack of evidence against them.

Three NGOs subsequently filed a pre-trial request and demanded heads of South Jakarta Prosecutors' Office, Jakarta High Court and the Attorney General, to further process the cases — otherwise the decision would have impacts on society.

The presidential fact-finding team had also recommended the cases not be brought to the court because of the lack of evidence.

The National Police had claimed Bibit and Chandra received Rp 2.5 billion (US$265,000) from graft suspect Anggoro Widjojo to halt the KPK’s investigations into a graft case involving the Forestry Ministry and Anggoro.

Bibit and Chandra were also named suspect for having allegedly abused their power in imposing and lifting travel bans on Anggoro and businessman Joko Tjandra. (ewd)