Despite a variety of incriminating testimony, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said on Friday that Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum had not been charged with graft.

The KPK was forced to rebuff rumors that Anas had been named a suspect in a multi billion rupiah corruption case surrounding the construction of the Hambalang sports complex.

KPK spokesman Johan Budi told a press conference on Friday that any information from anywhere but the mouths of KPK officials should be taken with a pinch of salt. “As long as there is no official statement [from the KPK], then it is still a rumor,” the spokesman said.

The antigraft commission had not even imposed a travel ban on him, Johan added.

KPK chairman Abraham Samad said the KPK officials still had to discuss matters related to the case before declaring Anas a suspect. “There are still a lot of things that have to be discussed,” he said

When asked if the KPK had prepared an investigation letter for Anas but had yet to sign it, Abraham refused to answer the question directly, and instead just replied with a laugh and a nod.

Rumors that Anas had being officially declared a graft suspect emerged after Democratic Party chief patron Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the KPK to decide immediately if Anas was involved in the Hambalang graft case.

Anas’ political rivals within the party claimed that his involvement in graft had caused the party’s electability rate to fall and called for his ouster. The party, however, can only unseat Anas if he is officially named a criminal suspect.

On Friday morning, before the KPK held a press conference to snub the rumors surrounding Anas, an investigator with the KPK who declined to be named, said the Democratic Party chairman had in fact been named a suspect. “Yes, [Anas] has been named a suspect,” the source said in a text message to The Jakarta Post. His statement fueled the rumors and later triggered allegations that political interests had interfered with the KPK investigation.

Abraham was quick to dismiss the allegations, saying that the antigraft body served no political interests, including those of the president.

Likewise, KPK spokesperson Johan stressed that the commission could not name someone a suspect just because the president urged the antigraft body to do so, adding that the commission’s domain was the law, not politics.

The Hambalang case centers on financial misappropriation related to the construction of the Rp 1.17 trillion (US$120.72 million) Hambalang sports complex in Bogor, West Java.

Muhammad Nazaruddin, the former Democratic Party treasurer who was indicted for his role in the case, has repeatedly accused Anas of illicitly using up to Rp 100 billion from the project’s budget to finance his bid for the party chairmanship in 2010.

Anas’ name has also surfaced in the testimony of other witnesses in the case.

Ismiyati Saidi, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party’s Gorontalo branch, for example, testified during Nazaruddin’s trial at the Jakarta Corruption Court that she and several other local party leaders received Rp 15 million ($1,635) in return for their votes in favor of Anas at the 2010 national congress in Bandung, West Java.

Democratic Party lawmaker Ignatius Mulyono, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission II which oversees the National Land Agency (BPN), meanwhile, claimed that he received orders to secure the land-use certificate for the Hambalang project from Anas.

Anas, however, has vehemently denied the accusations, going as far as to declare that he was ready to face the death penalty if he was proven guilty of corruption.

“If I am [proven] corrupt in the athlete’s village and Hambalang graft cases, even if it’s for only Rp 1, I am willing to be shot dead or hung at Monas [National Monument]. But what about the people who make slanderous accusations?” Anas said via his Twitter account in March last year.

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