DPR told to draft witness protection law

JAKARTA: Chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly Hidayat Nurwahid urged the House of Representatives to draft a witness protection law in order to speed up the process of solving graft cases.

"Currently witnesses who testify against graft suspects are threatened and intimidated. If we don't have the law, the witnesses will have to face the risk alone," Hidayat said.

He added that so far only prosecutors were given protection while there was no protection available for the witnesses, which discouraged people from giving information.

Hidayat also urged prosecutors not to chase small graft cases only but also cases involving trillions of rupiah as many suspects had managed to escape abroad without any difficulty.

"Corruption in Indonesia has become so rampant that foreign bodies needed to audit the aid given to Aceh. That shows that they don't trust us," Hidayat said. -- JP