AGO approves case file against Adrian

AGO approves case file against Adrian

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The Attorney General's Office has approved the case file of
Adrian Waworuntu, the main suspect in the Rp 1.7 trillion
(US$184.7 million) scam involving state bank BNI, moving
prosecutors closer to bringing him to justice.

The office's spokesman Kemas Yahya Rahman said the Jakarta
prosecutor's office was now expecting the police to transfer the
custody of Adrian and all evidence of his involvement in the case
to enable prosecutors to prepare the indictment.

"In our letter dated Sept. 9 to National Police Headquarters,
we declared Adrian's case file was complete. It's now up to the
police as to when they hand Adrian over to us," Kemas told The
Jakarta Post.

Prosecutors had previously rejected Adrian's case six times
for zeroing in on money laundering allegations but failing to
incriminate him on charges of corruption.

National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar once said he had
offered the case to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)
to handle.

According to the law on the KPK, the antigraft body has the
authority to take over cases from the police or the prosecutor's
office if both institutions cease their investigations or hand
the case voluntarily over to the KPK.

Kemas said Adrian would be charged with corruption, money
laundering and embezzlement. If found guilty, he could be
sentenced to life imprisonment.

"As soon as we receive Adrian and the evidence, we will
prepare the indictment and subsequently bring the case to court,"
said Kemas.

It usually takes the police two weeks to transfer a suspect to
prosecutors.

Case files of several other suspects, such as the Baso
brothers -- Jeffry and Judi -- are in the process of being
completed.

Another suspect in the case, Maria Pauline Lumowa -- the owner
of the Gramarindo Group -- has fled abroad.

Police have named 15 suspects in the case. Two of them --
Koesadiyuwono and Edi Santoso from BNI's Kebayoran Baru branch --
have been convicted and received sentences of 15 years in prison
and life respectively. Others are now standing trial at the South
Jakarta Court.

Several businesspeople from Gramarindo and Petindo Groups were
accused of stealing money from the country's second largest bank
in 2002 to 2003 by using fake letters of credit from
correspondent banks in Congo and Kenya to withdraw money from
BNI's Kebayoran Baru branch. The bank managed to recover Rp 400
billion of the money swindled.

Aside from their failure to gather evidence to implicate the
main suspects, the police and prosecutors have come under fire
for failing to recover the assets of the state bank.

BNI's management and lawyers have repeatedly said that only Rp
1 billion out of Rp 1.3 trillion of state losses had been
returned to the bank, despite the police's announcement that they
had confiscated assets worth over Rp 200 billion.