T

he South Jakarta District Court rejected on Tuesday another pretrial petition, this one filed by a former director of state oil and gas operator Pertamina, Suroso Atmo Martoyo, a decision that solidifies support for investigations by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

The decision brought to three the number of consecutive pretrial motions by graft suspects against the KPK that the court has rejected.

The KPK had its investigative authority questioned in February after a ruling that annulled the suspect status of controversial police officer Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan.

Defying the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP), which does not authorize pretrial hearings to decide on someone'€™s suspect status, South Jakarta District Court judge Sarpin Rizaldi found that the KPK did not have sufficient evidence to name Budi a suspect in a bribery case and ordered the antigraft body to call off its investigation into him.

Sarpin'€™s verdict then triggered six other KPK suspects, including Suroso, to file similar lawsuits at the court. Three cases have been rejected by the court and one suspect, former Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) chief Hadi Poernomo abruptly withdrew his case on Monday.

On Tuesday, the court further countered Sarpin'€™s controversial ruling when judge Riyadi Sunindyo, in his rejection of Suroso'€™s pretrial petition, said that graft suspects could not question the legality of KPK investigators because the antigraft body had the right to appoint policemen or civilians as their investigators, as stipulated in the 2002 Law on the KPK.

Graft suspects, including Suroso, earlier argued that only active police personnel could be investigators at the National Police or at the KPK.

Suroso claimed the court should order the KPK to stop investigating him because two of its investigators working on his case had resigned from the police in 2014.

'€œIt cannot be interpreted that only investigators from the National Police are legitimate. KPK investigators need not necessarily be active police officers,'€ Riyadi said.

Riyadi also agreed with the earlier two rulings which stipulated that articles 77 and 82 of KUHAP limited the authority of the pretrial mechanism only to the determination of the legality of an arrest or detention, the termination of an investigation or prosecution and a request for compensation and rehabilitation.

'€œJudges should abide by KUHAP and cannot make any interpretation of things that have clearly been stipulated in it,'€ Riyadi said.

The South Jakarta court is now left with pretrial motions from two KPK suspects, former Makassar mayor Ilham Arief Sirajuddin and former energy and mineral resources minister Jero Wacik.

The KPK said that it hoped the recent string of dismissals would persuade the other 36 graft suspects not to file pretrial petitions to challenge their legal status. '€œWe are satisfied with the series of court rejections. It has confirmed that our investigations into graft suspects are legitimate,'€ KPK legal division team member Nur Chusniah said after Suroso'€™s hearing on Monday.

'€œToday'€™s ruling also provides confidence that all our investigators [who have resigned from the police] are legitimate investigators. We hope that in the future this will no longer be questioned [by graft suspects],'€ said Chusniah.