Editorial: The hard-won battle

The country’s law-enforcement authorities have taken necessary legal measures to bring home ousted Democratic Party treasurer and graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin after he and his wife Neneng Sri Wahyuni fled Jakarta to Singapore over a month ago.

Still the businessman-turned-politician remains untouchable and is reportedly still in the neighboring country.

High expectation is now mounting on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to do all he can – within his constitutional authority – to bring Nazaruddin home and subsequently hold him accountable before the law.

The Directorate General of Immigration revoked Nazaruddin’s passport on the same day the overseas travel ban was issued against him on May 24, 2011, or one day after he left the country. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named him last week suspect in a bribery case related to a tender worth nearly Rp 200 billion (US$2.3 million) to construct an athletes’ dormitory for the upcoming SEA Games in Palembang, South Sumatra.

Previously, the anticorruption commission named suspects Wafid Muharram, the secretary to theYouth and Sports Minister; Muhammad El Idris, director of PT Duta Graha Indah (DGI), which had won the tender for the athletes’ dormitory construction; and Mindo Rosa Manullang, the marketing director of broker company PT Anak Negeri that was founded by Nazaruddin, in the case.

Now that the case has become high-profile, with Nazaruddin implicating a number of Democratic Party officials including Youth and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng and a number of high-ranking police officers such as National Police chief of Detectives Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi in the case, it will reasonably be more difficult to bring Nazaruddin home. All, including Mallarangeng and Ito, have denied their involvement.

It is thus equally reasonable if the general public expects Yudhoyono, as the country’s top executive and paramount chief patron of the embattling Democratic Party, to take more concrete steps in the effort to have Nazaruddin bear the responsibility of the crimes implicating him and at the same time have a decisive, but impartial, role in helping uncover the truth of the case.

It is true that Indonesia has yet to ratify the highly important extradition treaty with Singapore – the commonly available legal and diplomatic channel to bring a fleeing alleged criminal back home – that we cannot go through the universally practiced bilateral country-to-country mechanism to bring Nazaruddin back, and testify before KPK investigators.

But, we still have another legal channel through the Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) agreement that we have had with Singapore, as part of efforts. Also, more importantly, we have yet to see Yudhoyono exercise his authority and influence within the ASEAN brotherhood, particularly his personal and good relations with Singapore’s leaders that would be strategically fruitful in our attempt to bring Nazaruddin home.

Legal and diplomatic problems between nations are always difficult to deal with. But often, they became easy with good personal relations between leaders.