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KPK to let Komnas HAM, police grill Langkat graft suspect for alleged caging of people
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A police officer inspects an iron-barred cell located in the residential compound of apprehended Langkat regent Terbit Rencana Perangin Angin in Raja Tengah village, North Sumatra, on Wednesday. (Antara/Oman)
T
he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) will allow the police and the rights body to interrogate its detainee – graft suspect and inactive Langkat regent Terbit Rencana Peranginangin – about the dozens of people who were found kept in cages at his home in North Sumatra and allegedly forced to work on his oil palm plantation.
Terbit is being held in KPK custody in Jakarta on corruption charges. He was arrested and named a KPK suspect in mid-January for allegedly demanding kickbacks from private contractors in exchange for infrastructure construction projects in the regency.
The North Sumatra police found an iron-barred cell with four injured people inside when assisting a KPK operation to arrest Terbit at his home, prompting a separate investigation into suspected caging of people.
Not long after, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) launched its own probe against Terbit for allegations of torture and forced labor, as it had received a report from labor rights advocacy group Migrant Care.
Both Komnas HAM and the police have questioned several witnesses, but not Terbit.
"Terbit is being held in our detention facility. Of course, if the police and Komnas HAM need information from the suspect, we are ready to accommodate questioning at the KPK," KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
The cell found at the regent's home, located in a 36-square-meter outbuilding, is divided by iron bars into two smaller chambers. It was being used to hold drug addicts, teenage delinquents and several people who were believed to be working on Terbit’s oil palm plantations without receiving wages.
