W

ith Nunun Nurbaeti following in the footsteps of a long line of high-profile officials who have feigned illness to avoid questioning by law enforcement agencies, activists have called for graft suspects to be subject to independent health assessments.

Muhammad Hendra Setiawan from the Indonesian Judicial Watch Society (MaPPI) at the University of Indonesia said that any medical examination of a graft suspect should be independent.

“Actually, the KPK doctors can provide a second opinion to decide if a graft suspect has lied about their health,” he said.

Hendra said that the KPK must also make an extra effort to bring suspects to testify or appear in court.

He lamented the fact that the KPK had no standard procedure to assess the medical condition of suspects or witnesses in graft cases.

Hendra said that normally prosecutors simply told judges that the defendant was sick and could not appear in court.

“And these judges give credence to assessments from doctors who ironically have been assigned by the defendants themselves,” he said.

Chairman of the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) Priyo Sidi Pratomo said that if investigators, prosecutors or judges in graft cases doubted the validity of a doctor’s diagnosis, they could always look for a second opinion from an independent doctor.

Priyo said that given that there was no standard procedure for deciding whether a graft suspect was fit for questioning, the KPK should not tolerate such excuses.

“Just look at the trial of Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak who was wheeled [into court] on a hospital bed,” he said.

On Monday, high-profile graft suspect and businesswoman Nunun, who last year fled to Singapore to seek medical treatment to cure “severe memory loss”, was admitted to Sukanto Police Hospital in East Jakarta after her blood pressure had spiked during KPK questioning.

Nunun’s family doctor insisted that his client was gravely ill.

The doctor, Andreas Harry, dismissed speculation that Nunun’s illness was only an excuse to dodge questioning. He insisted that his assessment of Nunun’s health condition was valid.

Many have suspected that Nunun has invented or at least greatly exaggerated this illness to escape justice. Many have noted that the illness did not prevent her from traveling overseas to Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia last year.

KPK spokesman Johan Budi said he was convinced that Nunun was fit for questioning. “As to whether she is aware of herself or not — without a doubt, she is. She could even sign all the paperwork prior to her arrest,” Johan said. (msa)