AGO unit aims to speed up probe of graft cases

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).