Comr. Mohammad Arafat Enanie, who has been convicted of corruption, is considering giving evidence about the involvement of prosecutor Cirus Sinaga, allegedly implicated in a high profile graft case.
Arafat, recently sentenced to five years in prison, said he would disclose the evidence if convinced he could benefit from this, for example by a reduction in his prison term.
“I believe that the evidence will send Cirus to prison,” he told reporters. “But if could not benefit anything from disclosing it, I would not do it,” he said after testifying at the Gayus Tambunan graft trial.
Cirus is one of the prosecutors who allegedly fixed the not-guilty verdict for Gayus in a case in Tangerang earlier this year. Gayus is a former tax officer who illegally amassed a fortune of Rp 100 billion and was since tried for bribing law enforcers.
Nine people were named as suspects in the Gayus case. Two police officers and a judge are among the suspects. Investigators failed to name the prosecutor as a suspect because they couldn’t find evidence.
Gayus has confessed he gave a lot of money to prosecutors to buy his freedom in his earlier trial.
Zul Fathoni, a younger brother of Arafat who also attended the trial, said Arafat had given his evidence to the Witness and Victim Protection Program (LPSK) only to be told it didn’t have the authority to protect him as he was already a defendant.
“And Arafat is too afraid to report the evidence he has about the prosecutor’s involvement to other law enforcers. He has already been pessimistic about this,” he said.
He said he believed that Arafat was still weighing this up.
“My younger brother once told me that he wanted to see first whether the panel of judges at the higher court could reduce his sentence or not. If he can get a reduction then he will come out with everything he has in relation with the prosecutor’s [Cirus’s] involvement,” he said.
Emerson Yuntho of the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) acknowledged that he was concerned about Arafat’s situation. He encouraged Arafat to bring his evidence to the attention of law enforcers who could defend him.
“I must say that in this situation, there are only the LPSK, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Judicial Mafia Taskforce which can deal with Arafat’s case,” he said
He adding that Arafat should not report the evidence to the police or the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) because they were part of the problem.
One of LPSK commissioners, Lili Pintauli, acknowledged that she was not sure that Arafat had reported his situation to the institution.
“Every report to LPSK is brought to the plenary meeting. The plenary meeting will then decide whether the LPSK wants to process the report or not. To my knowledge, there has been no plenary meeting called to discuss Arafat’s report,” she told The Jakarta Post.
In fact, she added, if Arafat is sure about his evidence, he should bring it to LPSK. She said the agency could help him seek a sentence reduction with the higher Court.
“The Witness and Victim Protection Law allows us to ask for sentence reduction for a convicted person who helps law enforcement efforts. Therefore if Arafat feels that his information is worth reporting, he would have no reason to refrain from bringing it to our attention,” she said.
Arafat is the highest ranking police officer who has been sentenced to imprisonment for bribery and corruption following the decision of the panel of judges of the South Jakarta District Court.
