DPR told to draft witness protection law

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