Agus Condro Prayitno, whistle blower in the 2004 Bank Indonesia (BI) vote-buying case, says he approves of the Corruption Eradication Commission’s (KPK) move in naming Miranda Swaray Goeltom a suspect and urges the KPK to use Miranda to catch the mastermind behind the case who funded the bribery.
Agus, whose own sentence was handed down in June 2011, has finished serving his 15-month prison term for accepting bribes to sway the vote for Miranda as BI senior deputy governor.
"It's a good move as Miranda is the door in to those who sponsored the bribery," Agus told The Jakarta Post on Thursday after he received information about Miranda’s new status.
"There is no excuse now for the KPK not to dig deeper for information from her," he added.
Earlier today, the KPK named Miranda as a suspect in the case, which has already sent 31 members of the House of Representatives' finance commission at the time of the bribery to jail for accepting a total of Rp 24 billion (US$2.66 million) in the form of 480 traveler's checks after the lawmakers held a fit and proper test for Miranda and two other candidates for the post in 2004.
Yet, the KPK is still unable to nail the mastermind behind the case, who benefited from Miranda's selection, as the chain of evidence broke with the death of a person who knew about the traveler's checks in 2007, almost two years before the KPK launched its preliminary inquiry.
Agus insisted that the one who funded the scheme was "an entrepreneur." However, he claimed to know nothing about his identity.
"Miranda is not wealthy enough to fund the bribery," he said, adding that he also doubted businesswoman Nunun Nurbaeti, a suspect who disbursed the checks, sponsored the bribery.
The Anti-corruption Court has revealed that Bank Artha Graha purchased the checks from Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) in 2004, in the name of PT First Mujur Plantation and Industry.
First Mujur finance director Budi Santoso has testified that he did not understand how the Rp 24 billion had got into lawmakers’ pockets as the funds were supposed to be used by president director Hidayat Lukman to pay Ferry Yan for the purchase of an oil palm plantation in North Sumatra.
Ferry died in 2007.
The KPK has summoned several people from Artha Graha and First Mujur, as well as the BII.
KPK spokesperson Johan Budi said his office was currently investigating them as the checks were bought by Artha Graha, confirming that it would not stop until it had pinned down the bribe payer. (mtq)
