T

he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said Sunday it had rejected a temporary-release request filed by graft convict and Democratic Party cofounder Sutan Bhatoegana to attend his upcoming pretrial hearing at the South Jakarta District Court.

KPK spokesman Priharsa Nugraha said the commission respected Sutan'€™s move to challenge his legal status through a pretrial mechanism, but would not allow the politician, who was locked up on Feb. 2, to leave the detention center for the week-long pretrial as requested by his team of lawyers.

'€œYes [it has been rejected]. To my knowledge, we have never approved such a request,'€ Priharsa told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Separately, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Ade Irawan applauded the KPK'€™s firm stance on Sutan'€™s request, saying that '€œif such a request were approved then it would set a bad precedent for the KPK in the future.'€

Ade blamed a recent pretrial ruling issued by the South Jakarta District Court invalidating the KPK'€™s naming of Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan'€™s as a graft suspect as the main reason behind a recent flood of similar requests among graft suspects.

The court ruled that the KPK'€™s decision to name Budi a graft suspect was invalid, despite not a single article or clause in the country'€™s Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) giving it legal grounds to do so. The KUHAP merely stipulates that someone can challenge, through a pretrial mechanism, an arrest or a unilateral decision to halt an investigation by law enforcement agencies.

The KPK leadership has since accepted the ruling and decided to hand over Budi'€™s investigation to the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO), which intends to transfer the case to the National Police. This was done because the KPK is prohibited by its own law from halting a graft investigation. The KPK'€™s decision, however, has triggered public outcry.

'€œIt is still important for the KPK to challenge the verdict to prevent more graft suspects from challenging their legal statuses in the future,'€ Ade said.

Graft suspect and former religious affairs minister Suryadharma Ali is one of those detained by the KPK who has filed a request challenging the commission'€™s move to name him a suspect in the loss of about Rp 1 trillion in state funds from the national haj program, which he oversaw between 2012-2013.

In addition to the case against Sutan, it was revealed during testimony delivered by graft convict and former Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas) head Rudi Rubiandini at the Jakarta Corruption Court last year that the multimillion-dollar bribes he received from a number of oil and gas companies were partly channeled to Sutan'€™s office, the House of Representatives Commission VII on energy.

The House payoffs allegedly included a 2013 demand from Sutan for US$200,000 as '€œholiday bonuses'€ for Commission VII lawmakers. Another $140,000 was paid to '€œease'€ the deliberation of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry budget in 2013, which oversees SKKMigas '€” allegedly at the behest of former energy minister Jero Wacik, who is also a Democratic Party politician.

Due to his powerful position atop the energy ministry, Sutan also allegedly instructed Rudi to rig the bidding process for a lucrative multimillion-dollar oil project held by a local arm of US energy giant Chevron in which Edhie '€œIbas'€ Baskoro, the youngest son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has also been implicated.