T

he government needs to set up a dedicated body to handle both extradition and mutual legal assistance (MLA) to support the recovery of stolen assets overseas.

Critics said that the Law and Human Rights Ministry, currently the sole authority tasked with the responsibility, had been ineffective.

Experts and activists have pointed out that a large portion of stolen state assets from Bank Century are overseas, including around US$156 million in Switzerland and $16 million in Jersey, the Channel Islands. In addition, the National Police reported in April 2011 that there was at least $133 million stashed away in a bank in Hong Kong.

The mechanism to recover stolen assets overseas was outlined in the 2006 Law on MLA, which puts the law and human rights minister in charge of the task.

In January last year, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a presidential regulation ordering his top ministers '€” including Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin and Attorney General Basrief Arief '€” to start working on the recovery of Bank Century'€™s overseas assets.

Asset recovery expert Yusfidli Adhyaksana stressed that a special body would be needed to facilitate the extradition, the MLA and the asset recovery to cut through the red tape.

'€œThus far, the two agencies work as if they don'€™t play the role of an enforcement agency. There are too many administrative process, not to mention diplomatic channels,'€ Yusfidli said. '€œWe need to form a special body to facilitate extraditions and MLAs in order to recover stolen assets.'€

Yusfidli, however, said that the AGO and the National Police, given the criminal nature of asset recovery, should be involved in the special body.

Jamil Mubarok of the Indonesia Transparency Society (MTI) said that red tape had hampered the recovery of overseas assets.

He said that there were at least 12 steps to be taken to go through five units in the ministry.

At the Law and Human Rights Ministry, Jamil said, there were at least 80 requests that had to be filed just to begin tracing fugitives and their assets.

'€œOf the number, 17 requests were dropped and only three yielded results, including those of Nunun Nurbaeti, Umar Patek and Muhammad Nazaruddin. While the remaining 60 are still being processed,'€ he said referring to graft convict Nunun, who was arrested in Bangkok and extradited from Thailand in 2011; graft convict Nazaruddin, who was brought home from Columbia in 2011; and terror convict Umar'€™s return from Pakistan in 2011.

Yusfidli said efforts to recover stolen assets should come in '€œone package'€ along with the extradition of graft suspects.

He said that not only had the government efforts failed but it was also costly: In its attempts to recover Bank Century assets, the government has spent up to Rp 15 billion.