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KPK steps up probe into BI bribery case
The antigraft commission is intensifying its investigation into a high-profile bribery scandal surrounding the election of a central bank deputy governor as it attempts to again question an elusive key figure, a move that could lead to suspects being named
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he antigraft commission is intensifying its investigation into a high-profile bribery scandal surrounding the election of a central bank deputy governor as it attempts to again question an elusive key figure, a move that could lead to suspects being named.
Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) spokesman Johan Budi said Sunday that the antigraft body planned to summon businesswoman Nunun Nurbaeti for questioning as a witness next week.
“We will send her a letter requesting her presence at a questioning in early October,” Johan told The Jakarta Post, adding that the questioning session would take place soon after the letter was sent.
During prior investigations and at the trials of the first four suspects in the case, it was revealed that Nunun distributed Rp 24 billion in traveler’s checks — each worth Rp 50 million — to legislators after the election of Miranda Swaray Goeltom as Bank Indonesia deputy governor.
She allegedly did this through middleman Arie Malangjudo, who gave testimony incriminating her in one of the trials, saying that Nunun had instructed him to hand the checks to the legislators.
The KPK last week questioned three employees of Artha Graha Bank as witnesses in the case. Tutur, a teller, is alleged to have received an order placed by PT First Mujur Plantation to purchase 480 sheets of traveler’s checks from Bank Indonesia.
In the trials, it was alleged that the checks were ordered by the plantation company. It is still unclear if the company had business ties to Nunun’s company.
The Corruption Court, which tried the suspects, failed to bring Nunun in as a witness, despite many attempts by prosecutors and three court summons. Her lawyers said that she was in Singapore to treat an illness that rendered her “severely forgetful”.
One of her lawyers, Petrus Balapatyona, pleaded with the KPK to “leave her alone”. “As a lawyer, I think that if [Nunun] is sick, then let her be. Just wait until she recovers. If she is disturbed, she may get worse,” he was quoted as saying over the weekend by news portal kompas.com.
He added that if KPK investigators did not believe that she was suffering from severe forgetfulness, he would invite the KPK to form a team of doctors to check her condition, on the condition that the KPK’s doctors had the same level of expertise and professionalism as Nunun’s doctors.
Johan said the KPK would wait for Nunun’s response to its summon. He said a team of doctors would make for a second opinion if Nunun insisted that she was sick and therefore could not appear for
questioning.
“If she’s healthy and appears for questioning, we won’t have to assemble a team of doctors,” he told the Post.
Petrus said the KPK should not bring Nunun in forcibly.
