National Police chief Gen. Idham Azis has removed two high-ranking police generals from their posts for their alleged roles in allowing fugitive and graft convict Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra to travel within the country.

The generals were the National Police’s international relations division head, Insp. Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, and National Central Bureau (NCB)-Interpol Indonesia secretary Brig. Gen. Nugroho Wibowo.

National Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono confirmed Napoleon and Nugroho’s removal.

“[Nugroho] violated the code of ethics, while [Napoleon] did not supervise his staff properly,” Argo said in a statement on Friday.

He said Nugroho allegedly removed the red notice status for Djoko, allowing the fugitive to return to his home country.

Nugroho sent a letter to the Immigration Directorate General on May 5 stating that Djoko Tjandra’s red notice had been deleted from the Interpol system because the Attorney General’s Offi ce had not renewed the status since 2004.

Napoleon was replaced by Brig. Gen. Johanis Asadoma, while Brig. Gen. Amir Chadra Juli Buana replaced Nugroho as the NCB-Interpol secretary.

Napoleon and Nugroho are not the only police generals to find themselves in hot water for their alleged roles in assisting Djoko.

The National Police’s internal affairs division (Propam) has launched an investigation into Brig. Gen. Prasetyo Utomo, the head of the Civil Servant Investigator Supervisory and Coordination Bureau at the Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim), for allegedly signing a travel letter on June 18. Thanks to the letter, Djoko was able to fly from Jakarta to Pontianak in West Kalimantan on June 19 and returned on June 22 in his capacity as a consultant.

Argo previously said that Nugroho issued the travel letter “on his own initiative.”

Djoko Tjandra was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and ordered to pay Rp 546 billion (US$37 million) in restitution by the Supreme Court in 2009 for the Bank Bali corruption case in 1998. He escaped to Papua New Guinea and his whereabouts remained unclear, but he has reportedly traveled across the country undetected for the past three years.

He obtained an e-ID card from the South Grogol subdistrict in Jakarta and filed a request for a case review with the South Jakarta District Court on June 8.

The Jakarta administration has dismissed South Grogol subdistrict head Asep Subahan for issuing the e-ID card. 

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan confi rmed Asep’s dismissal, calling his misdeed a “fatal” violation that should never have happened. 

“The inspectorate has completed a report and it clearly shows that [Asep] violated e-ID card issuance procedures,” Anies said in a written statement on July 12. “He has been dismissed, and there will be a further investigation into the matter.”