The po­lit­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the multi-tril­lion-ru­piah e-ID cor­rup­tion scan­dal have be­gun to un­fold.

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives plans to ex­er­cise its leg­isla­tive right of in­quiry in a bid to force the Cor­rup­tion Erad­i­ca­tion Com­mis­sion (KPK) to re­lease in­ter­view records where the al­leged roles of a num­ber of law­mak­ers in the case are said to be men­tioned.

The KPK has strongly re­jected the de­mand to re­lease such clas­si­fied in­ves­ti­ga­tion doc­u­ments in the e-ID case, which has im­pli­cated dozens of politi­cians, high­rank­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and busi­ness­men, de­scrib­ing it as a po­lit­i­cal ma­neu­ver to ob­struct the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

KPK spokesman Fe­bri Dian­syah said that sub­mit­ting the records to the House would ham­per KPK in­ves­ti­ga­tors’ work in delv­ing fur­ther into the role of other sus­pects in the e-ID case, which the com­mis­sion be­lieves re­sulted in Rp 2.3 tril­lion (US$172 mil­lion) in state losses.

“I em­pha­size that the KPK will not open those doc­u­ments be­cause it risks ob­struct­ing the on­go­ing e-ID probe. We hope [the House] will not drag the le­gal case into pol­i­tics,” Fe­bri told re­porters at KPK head­quar­ters in South Jakarta on Fri­day.

The doc­u­ments in ques­tion are tran­scripts and video record­ings of the in­ter­ro­ga­tion of Ha­nura politi­cian and for­mer leg­is­la­tor Miryam S. Haryani.

The anti-graft body has so far named three sus­pects in the graft case. They are for­mer se­nior Home Min­istry of­fi­cials Ir­man and Sugi­harto, who are now on trial, as well as busi­ness­man Andi Agusti­nus, aka Andi Naro­gong.

In a sep­a­rate but re­lated case, the KPK has named Miryam, a for­mer mem­ber of House Com­mis­sion II over­see­ing home af­fairs, a per­jury sus­pect. Dur­ing an e-ID trial hear­ing at the Jakarta Cor­rup­tion Court, Miryam, who was un­der oath, re­tracted state­ments she made dur­ing the in­ter­ro­ga­tion in ques­tion.

Tes­ti­fy­ing dur­ing an­other trial hear­ing of the case, top KPK in­ves­ti­ga­tor Novel Baswedan, who has been un­der­go­ing med­i­cal treat­ment in Sin­ga­pore af­ter an acid at­tack by two uniden­ti­fied as­sailants, said that Miryam had con­fessed dur­ing an in­ter­ro­ga­tion that at least five House law­mak­ers had in­tim­i­dated her af­ter she re­vealed to the KPK about the dis­tri­bu­tion of il­licit kick­backs re­lated to the Rp 5.9 tril­lion project to law­mak­ers. The five are the Golkar Party’s Aziz Syam­sud­din, the Gerindra Party’s Des­mond J. Ma­h­esa, the In­done­sian Demo­cratic Party of Strug­gle’s (PDI-P) Mas­in­ton Pasaribu and the Ha­nura Party’s Sar­i­fud­din Sud­ding, ac­cord­ing to Novel.

De­scrib­ing it as slan­der af­ter Novel’s tes­ti­mony made head­lines, Com­mis­sion III dur­ing a hear­ing with the KPK on Wed­nes­day, pushed the anti­graft body to re­veal Miryam’s dossier and the CCTV record­ing of the KPK in­ter­ro­ga­tion room to sub­stan­ti­ate Novel’s court tes­ti­mony.

To strengthen its cause, Com­mis­sion III is set to launch an in­quiry to fur­ther push the KPK to com­ply with the House’s de­mands.

How­ever, Fe­bri said the KPK would not suc­cumb to pres­sure from the House. “An in­quiry right should not be used to in­ter­vene in a le­gal case,” Fe­bri added.

Com­mis­sion III chair­man Bam­bang Soe­satyo said the KPK needed to re­lease the doc­u­ments “so we can see whether our names were ac­tu­ally men­tioned.”

Mas­in­ton, mean­while, ar­gued that ex­er­cis­ing the in­quiry right was “im­por­tant to up­hold a trans­par­ent le­gal process.”

Com­mis­sion III deputy chair­man Benny Kabur Har­man claimed six out of 10 House fac­tions sup­ported the move.

Gad­jah Mada Univer­sity’s (UGM) Cor­rup­tion Stud­ies Cen­ter (PUKAT) di­rec­tor Zainal Arifin Mochtar said an in­quiry right was a po­lit­i­cal tool by the House, the pur­pose of which was to scru­ti­nize gov­ern­ment pol­icy. The right could not be used to in­ves­ti­gate law en­force­ment bod­ies, he added.

“It is a wrong call and mis­lead­ing. In­ves­ti­ga­tion doc­u­ments can only be open in court. Even in the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Law, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion doc­u­ment is not in­cluded as a pub­lic record,” he said.

Zainal and ac­tivists from the Anti-Cor­rup­tion Civil So­ci­ety Group vis­ited the KPK of­fice and met with KPK com­mis­sion­ers on Fri­day to ex­press their sup­port for fully in­ves­ti­gat­ing the e-ID case.

“We be­lieve that the House in­quiry ini­tia­tive is marred by vested in­ter­ests in­ter­fer­ing in the le­gal process of the e-ID case at the KPK. We call on the House to re­strain from in­ter­ven­ing in the le­gal process at the KPK,” spokesman for the group, Natalia Subagyo, said.