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Government urged to halt Denny, Novel cases
Expression of victory: Former chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Abraham Samad gives a thumbs up to photographers upon visiting the KPK building in Jakarta on Friday
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Expression of victory: Former chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Abraham Samad gives a thumbs up to photographers upon visiting the KPK building in Jakarta on Friday. Attorney General M. Prasetyo dropped on Thursday the legal case against him amid strong public pressure and legal technicalities. Prasetyo also dropped a separate legal case built against KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto. (JP/DON) (KPK) Abraham Samad gives a thumbs up to photographers upon visiting the KPK building in Jakarta on Friday. Attorney General M. Prasetyo dropped on Thursday the legal case against him amid strong public pressure and legal technicalities. Prasetyo also dropped a separate legal case built against KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto. (JP/DON)
Expression of victory: Former chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Abraham Samad gives a thumbs up to photographers upon visiting the KPK building in Jakarta on Friday. Attorney General M. Prasetyo dropped on Thursday the legal case against him amid strong public pressure and legal technicalities. Prasetyo also dropped a separate legal case built against KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto. (JP/DON)
The termination of the investigation into former chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Abraham Samad and his deputy Bambang Widjojanto has won praise from various quarters in the country. Yet expectation looms that the same decision be made in controversial legal cases pertaining to other law enforcement officials.
Law experts asked the government on Friday to put an end to a number of controversial cases involving antigraft 'heroes', following the latter's decision to drop cases implicating Samad and Bambang on Thursday.
The government, via the Attorney General's Office (AGO), decided on Thursday to bring those cases to a standstill using a deponeering method, a right conceived by the attorney general to stop an investigation in the interest of national stability.
Constitutional law expert Refly Harun said deponeering should also be used in 'other cases that have a similar background to that of Samad and Bambang's'.
'For instance, the case of Denny Indrayana who has been accused by the police of graft. The case seems peculiar as it has been prolonged for a year due to insufficient evidence,' Refly told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
In early 2015, Denny, a former law and human rights deputy minister, was named a graft suspect in a case involving the ministry's online passport system (payment gateway), which purportedly caused state losses of up to Rp 32 billion (US$2,436,800).
Denny, a vocal antigraft campaigner, was accused of abusing his power by directly appointing two online service providers, PT Nusa Satu Inti Artha and PT Finnet Indonesia, to run the system, which was canceled after running for only four months in 2014.
Refly question a statement by Attorney General M. Prasetyo on Thursday, in which he defended that the dropping of Samad's and Bambang's cases was part of the government's effort to 'keep the country's anticorruption spirit alive'.
'If the AGO wants to maintain 'the country's anticorruption spirit', it should have decided to issue deponeering soon after the police named Samad and Bambang suspects ['¦] Not yesterday,' Refly said.
The prolonged investigation into Denny, Refly explained, was similar to the investigations into Samad and Bambang. It took more than a year for the AGO to finally decide to drop their cases.
Bambang was charged with perjury relating to a local election dispute at the Constitutional Court when he was a lawyer, while Abraham was named a suspect for document fraud, during a tumultuous standoff between the National Police and the KPK last year.
The police mounted the cases in retaliation for the KPK naming Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, now the National Police deputy chief, a bribery suspect in January last year. Budi was the adjutant of Megawati Soekarnoputri when she served as president between 2001 and 2004. Megawati is currently the patron of the ruling Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
'Their cases go against the spirit of law enforcement because first and foremost, law enforcers, including the AGO, should work on felonies rather than on petty crimes, as what had been accused of them,' Refly said.
Legal expert Bivitri Susanti also shared Refly's opinion, asking the attorney general to issue deponeering in Novel Baswedan's case. Novel, a top KPK investigator, has been accused by the police of shooting robbery suspects during his year as Bengkulu Police detective chief in 2004.
On Feb. 22, the AGO issued a cessation order (SKPP) on Novel's case due to its expiration on Feb. 19 and the police's inability to gather enough evidence. (mos)
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