T

he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said on Thursday that it would send a team to Japan as part of its investigation into a bribery scandal surrounding allegations of tender rigging in a steam power plant construction project in Tarahan, Lampung, in 2004.

KPK commissioner Bambang Widjojanto said that the antigraft body would question witnesses from a large Japanese corporation, identified only by its first initial, M.

'€œ[The questioning] will involve a fairly large corporation in Japan,'€ he told reporters at the KPK'€™s headquarters in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

Earlier, as part of the same case, the KPK had sent investigators to the United States to question two executives in French-based conglomerate Alstom'€™s US subsidiary, who were later charged for allegedly bribing Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician Izedrik Emir Moeis in order to secure the Tarahan power plant contract.

Alstom won the tender for the project in 2004 along with Japan'€™s diversified group Marubeni Corporation through a consortium scheme.

According to Bambang, the KPK obtained clues of the Japanese company'€™s involvement through its investigation in the United States.

'€œWe coordinated with the US Department of Justice to question two people. From that, we got additional information that the case did not only involve the US corporation, but also the one in Japan,'€ he said.

Bambang added that it was important for the KPK to question the company so that it could get to the bottom of the case. '€œOur investigation depends on it,'€ he said.

When asked to confirm whether the Japanese company in question was Marubeni, Harly Setiabudi from PT Marubeni Indonesia'€™s general affairs division said that the company'€™s Indonesian subsidiary had no knowledge of the alleged bribery. '€œWe were not involved in the tender,'€ he told The Jakarta Post.

The KPK'€™s plan to question witnesses in Japan, however, could be jeopardized if the antigraft body failed to cooperate with the Japanese government, said Bambang.

'€œIn Japan [the system] is quite different. We have to use mutual legal assistance, which is a lengthy process that may take some time,'€ he said.

While the Japanese government informally had no objections to the KPK conducting its investigation in the country, the antigraft body still had to apply for mutual legal assistance, added Bambang.

So far, the KPK has named Emir a suspect in the case for allegedly receiving US$300,000 in bribes from energy infrastructure company PT Alstom Indonesia, a subsidiary of Alstom.

In addition to the cash, the firm was also reported to have entertained Emir in Paris, France, providing him with free accommodation and other amenities, including visits to adult entertainment spots.

Emir also allegedly spent the money he received from Alstom on a shopping spree in Paris. Alstom eventually won the project tender.

Meanwhile, Frederic Pierucci, an executive at Alstom, was charged in the United States in April this year, and another former Alstom executive, David Rothschild, pled guilty last November to charges emanating from the same case.