Panda to meet Bibit, Chandra to request testimony

Panda Nababan, a legislator currently detained as a suspect in a bribery case, is scheduled on Tuesday to meet two deputy chairmen of the organization that detained him, to ask them to serve as witnesses in his case. 

"We will meet Bibit and Chandra in person to talk about the request for them to be witnesses," Panda's lawyer, Patra M Zen, said at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) building in Jakarta on Tuesday, as quoted by tribunnews.com. 

He was referring to Bibit Samad Riyanto and Chandra Hamzah, the deputies of the KPK, which arrested his client last month. 

Panda, accompanied by Patra, was attending a KPK summons for questioning.

Panda has been accused of receiving bribes in the form of traveler's checks (paid to ease the way for economist Miranda S. Goeltom to become the senior deputy governor of Indonesia's central bank in 2004). 

According to Patra, Bibit and Chandra might justify the meeting between Panda and Miranda, which occurred before the latter underwent her fit-and-proper test at the House of Representatives prior to her appointment, because Chandra and Bibit also once met Panda before they took their own fit-and-proper tests prior to becoming KPK deputies. 

"This is related to Pak Panda's legal construction, that he [was said to have meet] Miranda and a member of House Commission IX before the senior deputy governor election...," he said. 

Patra said that while the meeting had caused Panda to be implicated in the bribery case, meetings between legislators and candidates for high official posts were common practice.