City police complain over returned Bulog dossiers

City police complain over returned Bulog dossiers

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city police complained on Thursday about the return of the
dossiers on two prominent suspects in the State Logistics Agency
(Bulog) graft case, saying the move was an effort to hamper their
attempts to bring the alleged corruptors to court.

The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office returned on Monday, for the
third time, the dossier on Bustanil Arifin, a former head of
Bulog. And on Thursday, it returned the dossier on Subiakto
Tjakrawerdaya, the former state minister of cooperatives, small
and medium enterprises.

The chief of the Jakarta Police's Corruption Division, Adj.
Sr. Comr. Anton Wahono, said prosecutors absurdly asked the
police to attach to Bustanil's dossier the original copies of six
presidential decrees, along with the originals of instructions
from the finance minister.

"We attached the legalized copies of the decrees, from the
Office of the State Secretary, and the instructions, which we
considered to be legal enough. However, they asked for the
original copies, which are impossible for us to attain. Nor can
we borrow them. We can only obtain them by calling them evidence,
which would mean seizing them," he said.

The six presidential decrees sought by prosecutors for
Bustanil's dossier are Decree No. 195/1973 on the installment of
Bustanil as the head of Bulog; Decree No. 39/1978 on Bulog;
Decree No. 45/1983 and No. 64/M/1989 on the installment of
Bustanil as the minister of cooperatives; and decrees No. 3/1984
and No. 8/1990 on the commodities managed by Bulog.

The police do not yet know why prosecutors returned Subiakto's
dossier.

City police spokesman Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam said the
prosecutors' decision to return the dossiers protracted the legal
process and prolonged the detention of the two suspects.

Bustanil, who was also an aide to former president Soeharto,
was moved from prison and placed under house arrest a month ago
because of illness. Subiakto has been detained by the city police
since March 20.

However, the assistant prosecutor for special crimes,
Tarwohadi Sajuri, who is prosecuting the Bustanil and Subiakto
cases, denied the prosecutor's office was attempting to hamper
the police's efforts to bring the suspects to court by asking for
the original copies of the presidential decrees.

"There was no request for the original copies; a legalized
copy is enough for us. The dossiers were returned simply because
the evidence was incomplete. But we cannot elaborate further
because the documents are confidential. Only the prosecutors and
the police know what is in them," he said.

Meanwhile, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Makbul Padmanegara
added that it was too early to conclude that there was a dispute
between the police and the prosecutor's office over the cases.

Bustanil and Subiakto were charged for their alleged roles in
a Rp 10 billion (US$1 million) scam at the cooperatives unit of
the Office of the State Minister of Cooperatives and Small and
Medium Enterprises

Bustanil allegedly ordered Subiakto to buy a 4,003-square-
meter plot of land on Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta from
Bambang Trihatmodjo, the son of former president Soeharto. The
plot of land, with a market price of Rp 1.8 billion in 1990, was
allegedly purchased for Rp 10 billion.