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All eyes on court’s pretrial ruling as Golkar turbulence intensifies
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Golkar Party chairman and House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto (center), accompanied by deputy chairman of the party's honorary council Akbar Tandjung (right) executive chairman Nurdin Halid (left) talk to journalists after meeting with former president BJ Habibie in Jakarta on July 24. (Antara/Hafidz Mubarak A)
T
he South Jakarta District Court is set to issue one of the most-anticipated court rulings this year on Friday. At the same time, the country’s second-biggest political party, the Golkar Party, has been encountering heightened turbulence due to heated internal conflict.
At the center of both is a man who has reportedly been lying ill at a hospital in Jakarta: House of Representatives Speaker and Golkar chairman Setya Novanto.
He filed a pretrial motion with the court to challenge the Corruption Eradication Commission’s (KPK) decision to name him a suspect in the high-profile e-ID case on Sept. 4. The hearings were held almost every day and the sole judge, Cepi Iskandar, is set to issue the verdict on Friday.
In February 2015, the public was surprised after the same court ruled in favor of then National Police deputy chief Gen. Budi Gunawan and annulled the KPK’s decision to name him a suspect.
Cepi rejected on Wednesday evening the KPK’s request to present a recording at the hearing, which the antigraft body claimed as “strong evidence” of Setya’s alleged role in the multitrillion rupiah graft case.
“We proposed to present an excerpt of a recording of a conversation in 2013, in which some people were discussing ways to swindle the e-ID project,” head of the KPK’s legal division Setyadi said on Thursday. “All we want is to prove before the judge that we have strong grounds [to name Setya a suspect].”
KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah refused to comment when asked if the KPK had obtained the tape from Johannes Marliem, the Indonesian-born businessman who was found dead inside his home in Los Angeles last month. Johannes, who was a key witness in the e-ID case, who claimed to be in possession of 500 gigabytes of digital recordings of his conversations with the key figures involved in the project.
