House corners KPK, threatens its dismissal

In a dramatic attempt to shield themselves from potential graft investigations, lawmakers lashed out at the antigraft body on Monday during a consultative meeting to probe its decision to question House Budget Committee leaders for alleged graft within the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry.

The House of Representatives’ law commission accused the KPK of politicizing graft cases and pick up any case without proper consideration.

The law commission said that the KPK had neglected multiple corruption cases linked to former Democratic Party politician Muhammad Nazaruddin in order to investigate the alleged corruption in the ministry’s infrastructure project.

“[The investigation] is against the presumption of innocence,” said commission leader Benny Kabur Harman.

The lawmakers questioned, dictated and advised the KPK on their way to summoning and interrogating four budget committee leaders as National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo and Attorney General Basrief Arief, who attended the meeting, looked on.

Fahri Hamzah of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) warned that the KPK, as a “superbody”, might no longer be suitable for democracy.

“There is no super [law enforcement] body in a democracy,” he said.

Fahri said that he would propose that the KPK dismiss the upcoming fit and proper tests to select new KPK leaders.

Tjatur Sapto Edy from the National Mandate Party (PAN) said the KPK should respect the House, which considers the anticorruption body as its “true son”.

Responding to lawmakers, KPK chair Busyro Muqoddas Saod said that the four were questioned in their capacity as witnesses and the collective questioning was conducted for technical reasons.

“The four are questioned to follow up testimony of a suspect in the case who testified about a financial flow to the minister and budget committee leaders,” he said, adding that the KPK had never intervened in the investigations.

Busyro said that it gave priority to the bribery case because it was not as complex as the graft case in the athlete dormitory construction project in Palembang, South Sumatra, which has implicated Nazaruddin.

Busyro was accompanied by his deputies Chandra M. Hamzah, Muhammad Yasin and senior KPK staff, who were all willing to respond to questioning.

The meeting was a compromise between the House and the KPK to end tensions after the antigraft body questioned four House Budget Committee leaders for an alleged bribe at the manpower ministry.

The KPK confiscated Rp 1.5 billion in cash from two ministry officials, which was aimed for Muhaimin and the budget committee leaders.

Busyro said after the meeting with the House here on Monday that the anticorruption commission had questioned a number of witnesses, including the four leaders of the House’s budget commission and Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar, but it has yet to decide on whether to hold them as suspects in the case.

“The investigation will continue. After conducting preliminary questioning, today the KPK will proceed with further questioning of two leaders of the budget commission and the minister,” he said.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie, who presided over the meeting, closed the consultative meeting without any conclusions, despite a call for a closed-door meeting between the two sides to further discuss the issue.