Evidence too week to charge Adrian, prosecutor says

P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A senior prosecutor said on Thursday the police had failed to provide adequate evidence for indictment against businessman Adrian Woworuntu, a key suspect in the Bank National Indonesia (BNI) scandal.

Marwan Effendi, the assistant for special crimes at the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office said that according to Article 183 of the Criminal Code Procedures, the police must present evidence that a criminal action actually happened and that the suspect was guilty of the crime.

According to Marwan, the case file submitted by the police was weak because none of the witnesses or evidence supported the accusation based on Article 2 of Law No. 31/1999 on corruption eradication and Article 3 or 6 of Law No. 15/2002 on money laundering, which were used by the police to charge Adrian.

Adrian has been released after 120 days in police detention, the maximum detention period for a suspect who is undergoing police investigation.

He is the co-owner of Gramarindo, a business group that reportedly received Rp 1.7 trillion (US$200 million) from publicly listed BNI in the form of 41 bogus letters of credit issued by some unreliable foreign banks. The other owner is Maria Paulien Lumowa, who is still at large.

Marwan said none of the witnesses questioned saw, or heard of, or took part in the crime allegedly committed by Adrian.

The dossier submitted by the police, according to Marwan, failed to reflect Article 55 Paragraph 1 on the participation in an offense and Article 56 Paragraph 1 on the assistance in a crime.

"So far, there is no evidence which proves that Adrian had transferred the money, nor were there any documents related with Adrian's signature," said Marwan.

He admitted that cases of corruption and money laundering were very hard to prosecute, especially if the perpetrators were professional and knew how to exploit loopholes in the law.

"The release of Adrian Woworuntu is just a logical consequence of the investigation," said Marwan.

Marwan added that if, in the end, the police could not provide the prosecutors with appropriate witnesses or evidence, then Adrian would be acquitted.

Rashid Lubis from Police Watch sees the case as a lack of knowledge of advanced banking law among the police.

"There should be a forum within the police to help them face criminal cases related to banking," said Rashid.

Such a forum, according to Rashid, would help police deal with banking cases, and how to determine which of the existing laws could be applied.

Most alleged bank fraud cases that were brought to court resulted in the acquittal of the defendants or lenient punishments.

Criminologist Adrianus Meliala from the University of Indonesia said there were several possible obstacles to bringing a suspect in a bank scam to trial.

"It was possible there was a conspiracy between the police and several parties who wanted Adrian to be freed by intentionally buying time until the legal detention period expired, the police found it hard to comply with the law, or that the prosecutors were trying to discourage the police by asking too much," he said.