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.