Elites at the National Police conveyed contradictory statements on the case Friday.

National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi insisted that the case exposure meeting on the Gayus case should be restricted to police detectives.

“The National Police chief has issued an order. It is an internal matter as stipulated in the police law,” Ito told reporters.

The statement was contradictory to the force’s earlier invitation for the Corruption Eradication Commision (KPK) and the Judicial Mafia Taskforce to attend the meeting.

Only hours after Ito’s statement, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Iskandar Hasan denied his statement.

Citing a confirmation from Ito’s deputy, Insp. Gen. Dikdik Maulana, Iskandar said detectives would invite the KPK, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and the Financial Transaction Analysis and Report Center (PPATK) to attend Gayus’ case exposure meeting scheduled for next week.

“However, the Judicial Mafia Taskforce will be excluded,” Iskandar said.

KPK deputy chief Mochammad Jasin shrugged off the fickle police attitude, saying it was not important.

The KPK was still waiting for more information about the case exposure from the police, he told reporters.

Jasin said the KPK would not push the police to allow the commission take over the case. “It might trigger rifts between law enforcement institutions. That would not be good,” he said.

Gayus, a former low-ranking tax official, has been widely publicized for his notorious — albeit still alleged — judicial and tax mafia felonies. He has been standing trial for allegedly bribing law enforcers and a judge using part of a Rp 100 billion (US$11.1 million) fortune of funds he illegally amassed from corporate taxpayers.

Pressure has been mounting for the police to hand over the case to KPK after public trust of the police slid following Gayus’ illegal jaunts away from the National Police’s Mobile Brigade detention center in Depok, West Java.

The trust went further downhill on the heels of Gayus’ hearing last week, where a bank witness said money in one of Gayus’ accounts was only Rp 16 million, not Rp 395 million as the police previously claimed to have seized.

Critics also slammed the results of police investigations into the alleged judicial corruption surrounding Gayus’ embezzlement investigation, saying the police let too many people go free, including several high-ranking police officers and powerful corporate executives.

Jasin said the KPK had yet to decide if the commission would probe the Gayus cases. “We are still gathering information and will study the case, but it is not yet an investigation. We don’t want to push it too hard, because we are afraid we would lose the chance to gain more information,” he said.

Jasin reiterated that the possibility for the KPK to investigate the Gayus cases remained open. “If we find evidence of corruption [during the police investigation], the KPK could work alone, without the police.”

Amid all the criticisms and pressures, the police detectives held a case reconstruction of the flow of illicit money going to Gayus. Police went to three places where Gayus allegedly negotiated and received cash bribes from middlemen as compensation to help several companies manipulate their tax obligations.

The police claimed their efforts were proof of their seriousness in probing Gayus’ taxation mafia ring.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) coordinator Febri Diansyah said he was disappointed in both the police and the KPK.

The police’s fickleness allowed for suspicions that something was foul inside the force, while the KPK should have been more decisive, he said. (ipa)

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