Probing police generals’ accounts our priority: KPK

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)’s new leadership has pledged to resurrect the protracted investigation of several suspiciously large bank accounts reportedly belonging to a number of police generals.

“[The investigation into] the police’s ‘fat’ bank accounts is now our priority,” newly-elected KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto said on Sunday.

Bambang, formerly a lawyer and anti-graft activist, acknowledged that there had been great pressure exerted upon the country’s top anti-graft body when it came to corruption investigations involving the police force.

“As we all have learned, under the previous leadership the KPK had been confronted by numerous ‘attacks’, such as the criminalization of former KPK leaders Bibit Samad Riyanto and Chandra M. Hamzah,” he said, adding that he would not succumb similar pressures.

“We need a strategy to address such complexity and such a strategy needs time to be implemented. So, just give us one or two years then you can judge us afterwards,” Bambang commented in response to journalists’ questions concerning public doubts about indiscriminative enforcement regarding certain institutions, such as the National Police.

Bambang has served as a KPK leader for less than one month.

A survey conducted by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) in December showed that people’s expectations of the KPK jumped significantly under the new leadership.

Some 65.1 percent of the survey’s 1,220 nationwide respondents said they believed that the KPK’s performance would improve under the new leadership.

The same survey, however, also showed that the number of respondents believing the police were clean was higher than those saying the KPK is clean.

The KPK has been touted as the country’s cleanest law enforcement institution since its establishment in 2003. (nvn)