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Months in, two of KPK's key graft suspects remain at large
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Hard evidence: Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) commissioner Lili Pintauli Siregar (center) and General Elections Commission (KPU) head Arief Budiman (left) listen to questions raised by journalists in a press conference in Jakarta on Jan. 30 on the arrest of KPU commissioner Wahyu Setiawan over alleged bribery. The investigators confiscated Rp 400 million (US$28,899) allegedly related to the case. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
T
he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has not yet been able to arrest two key graft suspects who are still on the loose, former Supreme Court secretary Nurhadi and politician from the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Harun Masiku, months after the antigraft agency named them suspects in two separate cases.
KPK deputy chairman Nurul Ghufron said efforts to discover the whereabouts of the two suspects had been unsuccessful.
“We have searched in 13 locations indicated to be their location, but we have had no results yet,” Nurul said on Friday.
Nurhadi was named a suspect in December for allegedly accepting bribes amounting to Rp 46 billion (US$3.2 million) in connection to three cases handled by the country’s highest court between 2011 and 2016.
Harun Masiku, meanwhile, was named a suspect in January in a bribery case implicating the ruling party PDI-P, allegedly related to his efforts to secure a seat as a lawmaker in the House of Representatives. The KPK has also named General Elections Commissioner (KPU) Wahyu Setiawan a suspect in the same case.
Nurul said that after being named suspects, the two had taken themselves off the grid by not using communication methods such as mobile phones, which further complicated the search process.
Nurul also said the KPK had not found any indications they were being hidden, but declined to provide further details about the KPK’s search methods and the locations that had been scoped out. He asserted that the antigraft body would continue its search for the suspects.
Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, who is also a senior PDI-P politician, came under fire, as the public and experts lambasted him over an alleged cover up after the Immigration Directorate General, which his ministry oversees, released information that Harun had fled to Singapore and that he was still out of the country when he was named a suspect.
It was later discovered that Harun had departed for Singapore on Jan. 6 and returned to Indonesia on Jan. 7 before the KPK named him a suspect the following day. The revelation triggered the dismissal of Ronnie Sompie, the immigration director general, and the formation of a special fact-finding team that ended up blaming an error in the immigration database for the false information that was provided regarding Harun’s whereabouts. (mfp)
