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nticorruption activists have welcomed the appointment of lawyer and Makassar-based activist Abraham Samad as the new leader of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) despite his previous associations with an Islamic hardliner group.

The House of Representatives’ Commission III on legal affairs and law, human rights and security, declared Abraham the winner of the KPK leader election after the vote count showed he had received the most support on Friday.

Earning solid support from the Golkar Party, Abraham finished ahead of rival candidates Bambang Widjojanto, Adnan Pandu Praja and Zulkarnaen, by securing 43 of the total of 56 votes. Abraham will lead the commission until 2015.

Although he was praised for being a clean candidate with no links to corruption, his record is hardly flawless.

In 2002, Abraham represented suspects in the bombing of a McDonald’s restaurant and a Toyota dealer showroom owned by then businessman Jusuf Kalla, former vice president, in Makassar, South Sulawesi, that claimed three lives and injured 11.

The suspects were members of the Preparatory Committee for Islamic Sharia Enforcement (KPPSI), an organization for which Abraham offered legal support in his capacity as investigation team head. The organization had links to Laskar Jundullah, a paramilitary organization linked to al-Qaeda.

Agus Dwikarna, a KPPSI front man, was arrested at Ninoy Aquino Airport in Manila for possessing explosives. He was arrested along with two other Indonesians: Tamsil Linrung, now a lawmaker with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), and Abdul Jamal Balfas, a businessman from Samarinda, East Kalimantan.

Abraham was then hired by Agus and Tamsil to represent them in the terrorism case.

Tama S. Langkun, a researcher for the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), said that while he had yet to hear of any problems relating to Abraham’s integrity, he had also not known of any major achievements he had made. “I haven’t heard about Abraham defending the bombing case or his involvement with the group, so I can’t comment on that. So far, I haven’t heard of any problems with his integrity,” Tama said.

A similar response came from Teten Masduki, secretary-general of Transparency International Indonesia, who said that the new leader should put aside his own political agenda and be independent in doing his work. “It [the House’s decision] was a political decision. Abraham is not too bad compared to the other candidates. We need to give him and the new leaders a chance to work.”

Tama said that he had heard that Abraham had once represented a mining company that had been embroiled in an industrial dispute with its labors. However, he said that he believed Abraham had only been doing his job as a professional.

“The new leader is very young and the public has high hopes for him. Now that the House of Representatives has named him the new leader, he should not be bound by gratitude for the House and cancel investigations into legislators,” he said.

He cited several cases that the new KPK leaders needed to focus on in the next four years: the Bank Century case, a bribery case involving the disbursement of traveler’s cheques, involving Nunun Nurbaeti, and the bribery case centering on the SEA Games athletes village in Palembang, which implicated Nazaruddin.

Teten said that the new leaders needed to build public trust by boosting the completion of high-profile corruption cases in the first 100 days. He said that the KPK should also improve its institution by adding more investigators, especially independent ones.

“The antigraft body should have a clear road map. For example, the antigraft body of Hong Kong focused on law enforcement and cleaning up the police institution. The KPK should focus on the legal mafia and political corruption, because those are the mother of corruption.”