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Palace cornered for dropping Budi
The State Palace is being pushed in a corner to explain its decision to drop Comr
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he State Palace is being pushed in a corner to explain its decision to drop Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan's nomination as the next National Police chief as the Attorney General's Office (AGO) has refused to grill Budi over his suspicious bank accounts.
Attorney General M Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post that his office would not summon Budi for questioning to confirm a financial analysis of the three-star police general's bank accounts that it recently received from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK).
'There is no plan on it,' he said on Thursday.
In addition, he said that a special AGO team was examining Budi's dossiers from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which had earlier named the three-star police general a suspect in a bribery case based on the PPATK analysis.
The AGO also has no plans to summon witnesses for the case.
House of Representative's lawmakers recently questioned President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo's decision to drop Budi, who had earlier gained approval from most factions at the House, arguing that Budi's legal status had been annulled in a pretrial hearing.
Prasetyo emphasized that AGO investigators had no plans to renew Budi's suspect status in their investigation, adding that the AGO would soon hand the case over to the National Police, which had probed Budi's bank accounts in 2010.
'We want to create synergy and have harmonious relationships with other law enforcement institutions. We don't want our investigations to overlap,' Prasetyo added.
Budi will likely be cleared of the charges should his case be transferred to his office as the 2010 National Police investigation did not find any irregularities in his bank accounts.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Thursday that President Jokowi was ready to explain his reasons for dropping Budi's nomination despite him no longer being a graft suspect.
'The government will talk to House of Representatives Commission III [overseeing law and human rights],' he said at his office in Central Jakarta. 'Maybe next week'.
Kalla added that the President would have Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno and Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H . Laoly meet with the commission to settle the matter.
A former adjutant to former president and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairperson Megawati Soekarnoputri, Budi was Jokowi's previous choice for the top-cop post.
The KPK named Budi a suspect in a bribery case only days before a confirmation hearing at the House in which the legislature decided to approve Budi's nomination.
Jokowi later dropped his nomination following public outcry and opted to nominate police deputy chief Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti instead.
Badrodin's nomination has been challenged at the House, with most party factions refusing to talk about his nomination before the President explains his move to drop Budi.
Although each of the 10 factions have yet to formally announce a final decision on the matter, leaders from the majority factions have called to defer Badrodin's confirmation hearing until Jokowi provides an official reason for withdrawing Budi's nomination.
