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Jakarta Post

KPK hints at more suspects in Garuda case

Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Mon, January 23, 2017

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KPK hints at more suspects in Garuda case Former Garuda Inconesia president director Emirsyah Satar (Kompas/Haryo Damardono)

T

he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has hinted that more officials at state-owned flag carrier Garuda Indonesia could be involved in a transnational bribery case that has implicated former president director Emirsyah Satar.

“Emirsyah’s alleged corrupt practices are believed to have involved other actors,” KPK spokesperson Febri Diansyah said on Saturday.

The antigraft body has charged Emirsyah with corruption for his alleged role in a number of procurements by Garuda during his term as president director between 2005 and 2014, including procurements involving British engineering giant Rolls-Royce.

Febri said the antigraft body would start summoning a number of witnesses for questioning at the end of January, as its investigators were still studying evidence they had recently seized at five locations.

The KPK has also slapped a sixmonth travel ban on the two suspects in the case, Emirsyah and businessman Soetikno Soedarja, as well as three witnesses — former president director at Garuda Maintenance Facilities (GMF) Hadinoto Soedigno, former Garuda vice president for asset management Agus Wahyudo and businesswoman Sallyawati Rahardja.

Soetikno is the owner of a Singapore-based company, which was allegedly used as a broker to orchestrate the bribe from the British engineering giant, which produces Trent 700 engines for Airbus A330 aircraft.

The investigation into the high-profile case, which involved cooperation between the KPK, the United Kingdom’s (UK) Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), has also sent signals that the commission is flexing its muscles over multinational white-collar corruption.

“This is a warning for those who think that it is safe to engage in bribery outside our jurisdiction, like in Singapore,” Febri said.

The Garuda case is the third transnational graft case in the KPK’s history.

The first centered around a bribery case at state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina to secure a 2004-2005 fuel additive contract worth $4 million for UK-based fuel additives manufacturer Innospec Limited. In the case, Jakarta sent former Pertamina executive Suroso Atmo Martoyo and two brokers to prison, while a British court sentenced four Innospec executives. The joint investigation also involved authorities from Singapore in relation to a bank used by Suroso.

The KPK also uncovered the bribery case of Izedrik Emir Moeis, a politician from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), now the ruling party, who received money from France-based infrastructure giant Alstom SA to pave the way for the firm to obtain a $268 million coal-fired power plant in Tarahan, Lampung, in 2004.

International law expert Hikmahanto Juwana urged the KPK to closely monitor every overseas corruption case so that nothing slips off the radar.

“The next challenge for the KPK is how to bring evidence gathered by foreign investigators abroad and foreign witnesses to Indonesia to support the KPK’s investigation and the prosecution,” he said.

Emirsyah was appointed president director of Garuda in 2005 and resigned from the top post at the national flag carrier in December 2014, three months before he was due to end his term.

Before naming Emirsyah a suspect, the KPK questioned him and his wife late last month. Emirsyah, whose assets have doubled in three years from Rp 19.9 billion in 2010 to Rp 48.7 billion in 2013, has denied the allegations made by the KPK.

The KPK investigation comes only days after Rolls-Royce agreed to pay £497 million to the UK’s SFO after the UK High Court approved the out-of-court settlement that will prevent the firm from being prosecuted by investigators in the UK. Individual executives, however, can still be charged.

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