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Fake passports, lax enforcement: Activists warn of porous immigration system
Authorities were unable to detect the return of graft convict and decade-long fugitive Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra. Activists worry that others will exploit the same holes in enforcement.
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Djoko Tjandra stands trial for his involvement in the Bank Bali graft case. He was later convicted of misusing Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support (BLBI) funds. (JP/Arief Suhardiman)
I
mmigration authorities have once again found themselves under scrutiny after failing to detect the arrival of high-profile graft convict and fugitive Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, who is believed to have returned to Indonesia after spending about 10 years overseas.
Antigraft activists warned that other convicts could make use of holes in the immigration system to escape or reenter the country and avoid prosecution.
Djoko was involved in the Bank Bali scandal, which saw hundreds of billions of rupiah embezzled from state bailout funds for the 1998 Asian financial crisis. He was acquitted in 2000 but later convicted in 2009 after the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) filed a request for review.
Djoko fled the country to Papua New Guinea on June 10, 2009, a day before the Supreme Court issued its ruling. Indonesian authorities learned that Djoko had reentered the country only after the AGO discovered he had filed an appeal in early June for a review of his case. His lawyer Andi Putra Kusuma later confirmed that Djoko had been present at the South Jakarta District Court on June 8 to file the documents.
Djoko's whereabouts since have remained unclear. He has skipped his court hearings, and critics have wondered aloud why authorities have failed to find him.
“I’m just worried that the weak immigration monitoring system will motivate other graft criminals to escape the country,” said Zaenur Rohman, a researcher at the Gadjah Mada University Center for Anticorruption Studies (Pukat UGM).
“Not only was Djoko able to flee undetected [in 2009], he also managed to return to the country without being noticed by immigration. That should be a wake-up call for immigration [authorities] to realize that their monitoring system is weak,” he said.
