AGO to probe superiors of prosecutor arrested by KPK

The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) said Tuesday it will question the superiors of Dwi Seno Wijanarko, a Tangerang prosecutor who was recently arrested for allegedly extorting a bank employee.

“We will internally probe his supervisors as they are responsible for monitoring their subordinate,” junior attorney for internal monitoring Marwan Effendy said, as quoted from Antara news agency.

Among the prosecutors to be questioned is Tangerang chief prosecutor Chaerul Umar.

Seno was caught accepting money from a man believed to work for state lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia on the side of a road in Bintaro, Tangerang, Banten, last Friday. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) confiscated a brown envelope containing the alleged bribe money as well as Seno’s car.

Seno was taken into KPK custody and placed in the Cipinang detention center in East Jakarta after 15 hours of questioning on Saturday.

He was named a suspect in the alleged case of extortion. “[This was] an abuse of power in relation to his position to force a person to give something with the intention of enriching himself or other people,” Marwan said.

Marwan asserted that the internal probe would not overlap the KPK investigation.

“We won’t investigate the alleged crime because it is being handled by the KPK. We will only probe the implementation of the embedded monitoring responsibility,” he said.

He said that his office would question people who knew about the details of Seno’s handling of the case.

For example, the office will investigate the head of prosecution unit and the head of general crime unit at the Tangerang office. “Because they were the ones who supervised the case,” he said.

AGO spokesperson Nur Rochmad confirmed the plan to investigate Seno’s supervisors, yet refused to disclose when they would start the investigation or what kind of procedures they would use.

“Just wait for tomorrow,” he told The Jakarta Post.

He added that Seno had been automatically suspended following the arrest.

Attorney General Basrief Arief had previously said that he issued the suspension letter on Feb. 14.