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ow that Gen. Badrodin Haiti has been installed as the new National Police chief, the controversy over Comr. Gen Budi Gunawan, the former National Police chief candidate who has been tipped as Badrodin'€™s deputy, should be resolved once and for all.

But the big clouds hanging over Budi and his integrity, which were generated by suspicious transactions worth of millions of dollars through his bank accounts and those of his son in 2010, can never be removed as long as the money-laundering allegation'€™s are handled by the police'€™s detective directorate alone.

The police leadership will simply repeat the mistake it made in June 2010, when police detectives hastily clarified, without the endorsement of independent examinations by tax auditors, that the huge sums of money flowing through Budi'€™s and his son'€™s accounts were related to legitimate businesses of Budi'€™s family.

Budi'€™s bribery case was referred back to the police after the South Jakarta District Court concluded in a pretrial hearing in February that the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) lacked evidence to name Budi a suspect in bribery and money-laundering cases and ordered the KPK to call off its investigation into him.

This is a second chance for the National Police to resolve the case once and for all and to establish whether Budi is really clean or not. But if Badrodin and the police are really serious about clarifying all the bribery and money-laundering allegations against Budi, the reinvestigations and clarifications should not be led by the police'€™s chief detective but by an independent team that includes Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) analysts and tax auditors.

It would not be fair to let the allegations and suspicions continue to hang over Budi'€™s head. Because, had it not been for the money-laundering suspicions that arose after the radar of the PPATK caught the suspicious bank transactions, Budi actually deserved the top position within the National Police, given his long career and technical competence.

Whatever clarification or clearance the police'€™s detective directorate again issues, however many independent lawyers and analysts are involved in the reinvestigation of the money-laundering case, it would be futile to attempt to clear Budi'€™s name and reputation if the whole process was led by the police'€™s detective chief.

Like it or not, once a bank customer is caught in suspicious transactions by the PPATK, it is the account holder that is held responsible to clarify, with the support of all the necessary legal documents, that the transactions are legitimate and do not involve ill-gotten money.

We wonder why Budi, if he is really concerned about his integrity, did not from the outset ask tax auditors to crosscheck his annual income tax returns against the transactions through his bank accounts and the audited balance sheets of his family businesses.

Without clearance from tax auditors, no amount of explanations or clarification by the police will be effective in rehabilitating Budi'€™s name and reputation.