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Bambang sues police, AGO over minor charges

Suspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto reregistered his pretrial motion on Wednesday with the South Jakarta District Court after the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) declined to halt investigations into his perjury case despite a recommendation from an association of lawyers confirming his innocence in the case

Haeril Halim and Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, May 28, 2015

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Bambang sues police, AGO over minor charges

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uspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto reregistered his pretrial motion on Wednesday with the South Jakarta District Court after the National Police and the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) declined to halt investigations into his perjury case despite a recommendation from an association of lawyers confirming his innocence in the case.

Last week, Bambang withdrew his pretrial motion, which asked the court to annul his status as a suspect, to give time for the National Police to consider the Association of Indonesian Advocates'€™ (Peradi) recommendations on his case.

The police, however, ignored Bambang'€™s move and went ahead by sending his case dossiers to the AGO, which later declared the dossiers completed and ready for a trial at Central Jakarta District Court.

Now in his fresh pretrial plea, Bambang'€™s team of lawyers sued National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti and National Police'€™s Criminal Investigations Department (Bareskrim) chief Budi Waseso for their decision to name him a suspect in the perjury case.

In addition, the plea seeks a court order to declare the AGO'€™s decision to send Bambang'€™s dossiers to the court for trial as illegitimate.

The Police accused Bambang, a former lawyer, of encouraging witnesses to give false testimonies during a Constitutional Court (MK) hearing on the West Kotawaringin election dispute in 2010, one year before he was named KPK commissioner in 2011, although a recent investigation by Peradi concluded that there was no perjury offenses taking place during the process at MK.

'€œThis legal move is not just meant to prove he is not guilty of the false accusations behind the criminal charges, but also to teach lessons to the country'€™s law enforcement process, which should comply with the existing rule,'€ said Bambang'€™s lawyer Nurkholis Hidayat on Wednesday.

In a show of force, which many see as a retaliatory move, National Police investigators arrested and handcuffed Bambang, who did not even resist arrest, and took him to the police headquarters to question him about his alleged role in the perjury case after he drove his son to school early in the morning on Jan. 23, 10 days after the KPK named then candidate for the National Police chief position Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan a suspect in a bribery case.

It only took the police five-working days to proceed with a criminal report against Bambang with regard to the perjury case before conducting the arrest.

Another one of Bambang'€™s lawyers, Bahrain, said that he was optimistic that the court would rule in favor of Bambang as investigations carried out by independent agencies, such as the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and the Indonesian Ombudsman, confirmed flaws in the police'€™s handling of Bambang'€™s case.

'€œAnother argument that we will use to convince the pretrial judge is that the police decision to arrest and detain Bambang was not consistent with existing regulations,'€ Bahrain said.

Ombudsman found that the police allegedly violated Articles 1 and 2 of the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) for making an arrest without even launching a preliminary investigation, adding that police investigators also violated Article 72 of the KUHAP for not handing over copies of Bambang'€™s dossiers after his questioning concluded in February.

Meanwhile, the Komnas HAM said its investigation showed that the police abused their authority in the arrest, adding that one of the most blatant violations was the police'€™s decision to handcuff Bambang in front of his children.

Separately, Bareskrim chief Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso said on Wednesday that he respected Bambang'€™s right to return to the court for his pretrial appeal, while AGO spokesman Tony Spontana said that the AGO had yet to receive any information on when Bambang'€™s trial would commence.

'€œI have no problem with it, it'€™s his right to do it. As long as his right [for a pretrial] is stipulated in our laws then there is absolutely no problem, so why worry?'€ Budi said.

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