S’pore refuses to renegotiate extradition treaty with RI

Nunun Nurbaety (kompas.com)The Singaporean government said on Wednesday it regarded its current extradition treaty with Indonesia, signed in 2007, as final, despite difficulties the latter had experienced in securing approval from the House of Representatives to ratify it.

Speaking to a group of visiting Indonesian journalists, Singapore’s Minister of State for Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs Masagos Zulkifli said he fully respected the political response to the treaty in Indonesia, but quickly stressed that Singapore would never make it a subject for renegotiation since this would set a bad precedent for the country in the eyes of the international community.

“If we renegotiate the already signed [extradition] treaty, it would mean we might have to renegotiate many other agreements with other countries with whom we have already made commitments,” Masagos said.

Masagos, however, said Singapore would always support the Indonesian government’s efforts to return Indonesian crime suspects residing in Singapore, as long as the latter could provide enough evidence to charge them.

“Even without an extradition treaty, Singapore will give its commitment to supporting the Indonesian government’s efforts in enforcing the law,” he said.

In 2007, Indonesia and Singapore signed an extradition treaty that would have enabled Indonesian law enforcement officers to go after dozens of corruption suspects who had sought refuge in the city-state, along with another agreement on defense that would have granted both countries the right to conduct naval and air military training in each other’s territories.

The long-awaited extradition treaty, however, cannot be ratified because the House refused to approve both the treaty and the defense agreement, saying the agreements favored Singapore and could compromise Indonesia’s security.

“Singapore has never at any time seriously responded to our need to make a pure extradition treaty. Our two countries are supposed to agree on an extradition treaty without relating it to other matters,” House Speaker Marzuki Alie said some time ago in Jakarta.

He was complaining about Singapore’s reported request to be allowed to conduct military training within Indonesian territory in exchange for the extradition treaty.

The two issues were “not correlated”, Marzuki said.

Masagos, however, defended his government’s decision to offer both the treaty and agreement as one package.

He said the country’s defense cooperation agreement with Indonesia was actually mutually beneficial as the 712-square-kilometer city-state needed a wider area to conduct regular military training while at the same time it could provide opportunities for the Indonesian Military (TNI) to use its military equipment.   

“As a small country, military training is significantly important for our army so that we are always ready to defend our country from any possible threats. Since the TNI and the Singaporean army have conducted regular joint military training in past years, the [defense cooperation] agreement basically will only legalize the cooperation that has been running [between Singapore and Indonesia],” he said.

According to Indonesia Corruption Watch, as many as 45 people linked to graft cases have fled overseas during the past 10 years, with 20 choosing Singapore as their destination.

The list includes Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, a businessman convicted of receiving Rp 546 billion (US$60 million) in state funds linked to the Bank Bali bailout in 1999.

Nunun Nurbaeti, a key witness in the 2004 vote-buying scandal, was previously also allegedly in Singapore receiving medical treatment, but her location is now unknown.