AGO unit aims to speed up probe of graft cases
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Bandung
Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes at the Attorney General's Office (AGO) Hendarman Supandji promised on Tuesday to speed up the investigation of corruption cases being handled by the AGO. These include cases linked to the alleged abuse of the massive Bank Indonesia liquidity support facility.
Speaking after the opening ceremony of the AGO sports week on Tuesday, Hendarman said his office would start next month evaluating cases dated from 1998 to 2003 as the ongoing investigation of cases was progressing slowly.
"We will start with the evaluation of all cases, then we will set a target, so that we can finish preparing court cases within two months only. For example, cases in 1998 should be finished in the August-September period," Hendarman said.
He said there were around 30 cases in total, including six or seven cases related to the abuse of billions of dollars worth of emergency funds channeled by the central bank to troubled banks in the wake of the late 1990s financial crisis (locally known as the BLBI case).
"I forgot the details of the cases we're handling. Some are still at the investigation level, while others are already at the prosecution level," Hendarman said.
He said he had asked the Attorney General to approve his program.
His statement came after he announced last week plans to replace the team of prosecutors handling the banking crime cases, since he felt the pace of investigation was not fast enough.
According to Tempointeraktif.com, Hendarman had submitted a number of names to the Attorney General to replace the existing team in the hope of speeding up the cases.
"I have submitted 25 names but, so far, the Attorney General has approved ten names only and the rest are still in discussion," Hendarman said.
Elsewhere, Hendarman said that once the prosecutors finished preparing the BLBI cases for the court, they would try the suspects in absentia.
"Most of the BLBI suspects have fled the country," he said.
He added that his office would try to locate assets owned by the BLBI suspects and seize them to help recover state losses.
Separately, Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh expressed his concern on Tuesday over the lack of available prosecutors for investigating the rising number of corruption cases.
"My office is currently facing difficulties in trying to finish several corruption cases because we don't have enough prosecutors. That is why the investigation of several cases has to be delayed," said Abdul Rahman.
Abdul Rahman said the AGO was now recruiting new prosecutors from a number of provincial prosecution offices to be tasked with investigating the corruption cases. It is expected that between 40 or 50 new prosecutors will start on the cases next month.
"It is not an easy task to recruit them, since we need to be sure of their reputation and their capabilities. We are currently trying to speed up the recruitment process in order to immediately wrap up high-profile investigation cases," he said.
Aside from encountering difficulties in providing prosecutors for its own cases, the AGO is also having trouble fulfilling requests from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to supply dozens of prosecutors for its cases.
Meanwhile, anticorruption director at National Police Headquarters Brig. Gen. Indarto said he planned to investigate more witnesses in alleged graft at state-owned insurance firm PT Jamsostek.
"Based on our investigations, there are four companies that received investments worth Rp 200 billion (US$21 million) from Jamsostek in the form of medium term notes," Indarto said, adding that the investment was made without observing prudential regulations.
The companies are PT Hari Prima Perdana (HPP), PT Surya Indo Pratama (SIP), PT Volgreen Indonesia (V) and also PT Sapta Prana Jaya (SPJ).