he chairman of the House of Representatives Commission III overseeing legal affairs, human rights and security, Bambang Soesatyo, said the Commission had nothing to do with a Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) operation on Tuesday, in which it purportedly caught red-handed a Commission III member.
“In the operation, KPK investigators caught red-handed a lawmaker but it has nothing to do with the Commission III. The lawmaker is a Commission III member but it [their crime] is not related with the Commission,” Bambang said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Apart from the lawmaker, three other people reportedly were nabbed in the KPK’s operation.
Bambang said among the three people arrested on Tuesday, none of them were staff members of the commission's secretariat. They were the lawmaker's secretary and personal staff members, he added.
The KPK arrested a lawmaker in an operation early on Tuesday but it has not yet given details on the arrested lawmaker. The antigraft body will reportedly give a press conference on the arrest Wednesday afternoon.
“Yes, we conducted an operation [in which a lawmaker was arrested]. We will give details about it later,” KPK spokeswoman Yuyuk Andriati told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. She did not confirm when asked whether the arrested lawmaker was a Commission III member. The KPK has 24 hours either to decide to name the lawmaker as a corruption suspect or to release the lawmaker after being questioned.
This is not a first for the KPK to have a House lawmaker arrested. Earlier this year, the antigraft body nabbed Damayanti Wisnu Putranti of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction in an alleged gratification case for a construction project. The KPK named Damayanti, who previously sat in House Commission V overseeing infrastructure and transportation, a suspect in the case, on Jan.14.
Damayanti is currently undergoing her trial. Her colleagues from Commission V, Budi Supriyanto of the Golkar Party faction and Andi Taufan Tiro of the National Mandate Party (PAN) faction, were also named suspects in the same case. (ebf)
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