Hengky Baramuli, one of 24 current and former legislators implicated in a bribery case surrounding a 2004 central bank election, remains at large, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said.
“We are unable to locate Hengky’s whereabouts,” KPK spokesman Johan Budi told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
“Our investigators searched for him at his two houses in Jakarta and found no trace of him.”
Hengky, a former Golkar Party legislator, was a former member of the House of Representatives’ Commission IX, and served in the legislature from 1999 to 2004.
The KPK last Friday arrested 19 politicians accused of accepting bribes to support Miranda S. Goeltom’s bid to be as Bank Indonesia senior deputy governor in 2004.
Johan said KPK investigators were continuing the search for Hengky.
“We won’t stop until we to locate and arrest him,” he said.
Hengky, who, along with Williem Tutuarima, Rusman Lumbantoruan and Bobby Suhardiman, evaded the KPK’s round up last Friday by citing health reasons when the KPK summoned him for questioning and later tried to arrest him.
“We were told he was sick at the time. We also tried to pick him up at his house but he was not there,” Johan said.
There was recent speculation that Hengky was being detained at the National Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, due to his poor health.
Johan dismissed the rumor, saying that Hengky’s whereabouts were unknown since last Friday.
KPK deputy chairman Mochammad Jasin told the Post later on Thursday that KPK investigators had not yet briefed him on their search.
Hengky’s lawyer Andi Kurniawan told the Post via telephone that his client was at his house in Jakarta all this time. However, Andi refused to disclose which house this was.
“He suffers from heart problems. He cannot travel.”
Hengky once attempted to shed his suspect status by filing a request to have a judicial review over article 40 of the 2002 KPK Law, which stipulates that the antigraft body is not authorized to issue an order to stop investigation and prosecution of corruption cases. He tried to get a formal “order to stop investigation” against himself.
The Constitutional Court later turned down his request.
On Tuesday, the KPK arrested three politicians from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P): Budiningsih, Williem Tutuarima and Rusman Lumbantoruan for receiving traveler’s checks in return for supporting Miranda.
Budiningsih, who was not in Jakarta last Friday, arrived at KPK offices with her lawyer for questioning, after which she was detained.
Williem, meanwhile, was arrested in Semarang, Central Java, according to his lawyer Yanuar Wisesa.
Rusman was picked up from his house to undergo questioning by the KPK and was later detained.
A day later, the KPK also detained Bobby Suhardiman from Golkar after he was questioned by the KPK on the same day.
Last Friday’s arrests bring the total number of detained suspects in the case to 23, excluding four politicians who have been found guilty by the Corruption Court.
