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orruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Abraham Samad said on Wednesday that the leak of a classified KPK document outlining charges against a top Democratic Party politician was part of a plan to remove him from the antigraft body.

Abraham issued the statement after the ethics panel launching an inquiry into the scandal announced it had found indications that at least one of the KPK’s leaders was to blame for the leak.

“This is because all this time I have been very blunt and courageous in resolving major corruption cases,” Abraham said.

The panel, which is expected to disclose the results of its inquiry in the next few days, said that it already held the names of those responsible for the leak and they could be guilty of an ethics breach. But it declined to name names until the inquiry had been completed.

As of today, the panel has questioned at least three KPK commissioners who may have been involved in the scandal: Busyro Muqoddas, Zulkarnaen and Adnan Pandu Praja. It remains unclear if the panel has questioned Abraham despite widespread rumors that he was the source of the leak.

The leaked document was a draft letter ordering an investigation into alleged corruption committed by former Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum. The letter, called sprindik, was signed by Abraham, Zulkarnaen and Adnan. Such a document is considered a state secret until it is approved by the five KPK commissioners.

Bambang Widjojanto and Busyro did not sign the letter. Adnan claimed later that he revoked his signature soon after he found out that the investigators had yet to conduct a case expose on Anas’ case.

Bambang and Busyro reportedly refused to sign the letter and authorize a full-blown investigation into Anas, saying they needed to collect more evidence to build a stronger case against the top politician. Abraham, however, insisted that the investigators had already found ample evidence to charge him.

The scandal has put the KPK’s credibility in jeopardy. The document was leaked at a time when Anas was facing political pressure from his rivals to step down as party chairman. He was accused of dragging the party down because of the various graft allegations leveled against him.

At the time, the KPK had yet to officially charge Anas.

The crisis led party patron President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to plead with the KPK to decide whether to charge or clear Anas, saying that the uncertainty over his legal status was taking its toll on his party’s reputation. The document was leaked a few hours before Yudhoyono announced that the party’s supreme assembly that he chaired had decided to suspend Anas and order him to focus on his legal problems.

Anas resigned as party chairman in February soon after the KPK officially charged him with accepting gratuities while he was a lawmaker in 2009. In his resignation speech, the former Islamic Students Association (HMI) chairman said the case against him was part of a scheme to take over his leadership.

The KPK has denied political intervention was behind its decision to name Anas a corruption suspect and decided to set up an ad hoc ethics panel to prove its claim.

Anies Baswedan, who leads the panel, deplored Abraham’s statement. “The panel has not made any decision on the case yet. So it would be better if we could avoid speculation that will further weaken the KPK itself,” he said.

Emerson Yuntho of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) called on the panel to disclose the results of its inquiry as soon as possible.

“We hope the ethics panel will announce its inquiry results soon, as if it doesn’t, this case will become a polemic,” he said. Abraham, then an obscure antigraft activist from Makassar, South Sulawesi, was elected the KPK chairman by the House of Representatives in 2011. (ogi)