Expert brought in to help with BNI case

P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police have enlisted two prominent legal experts to back up their allegation businessman Adrian Woworuntu was involved a high- profile Rp 1.7 trillion (US$200 million) financial scandal involving state Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).

Police chief of detectives Insp. Gen. Suyitno Landung Soedjono said on Friday the police had asked Harkristuti Harkrisnowo and Andi Hamzah from the University of Indonesia to act as their expert witnesses on criminal law.

"This is only a technical matter. We already have several pieces of legal evidence, including several documents, and other expert witnesses to strengthen our case," Landung said.

Suyitno said police would hold a meeting with the prosecutors to review the progress of the investigation and discuss flaws in the existing dossier on Adrian.

"We will discuss the inadequacies in the dossier, and hopefully, we will be able to include all the materials required by (prosecutors) next week," Suyitno said.

The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office earlier returned Adrian's dossier on the grounds police had failed to build a strong case against Adrian, a key suspect in the scandal.

Marwan Effendi, the assistant for special crimes at the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office said on Thursday the case file submitted by the police was not strong enough to indict Adrian for breaking Article 2 of Law No. 31/1999 on corruption eradication and Article 3 of Law No. 15/2002 on money laundering.

Marwan said there were no documents proving the existence of any money transactions, nor any documents with Adrian's signature on them to support articles 55 and 56 on criminal law about aiding and abetting a crime.

Suyitno, however, argued the police already had enough documents for evidence. "We already have such documents -- for example, there is a document which mentions the participation of the suspect. All we need now is for the expert witnesses to strengthen this evidence," he said.

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

The police arrested Adrian on Nov. 18, last year for questioning after hunting him for a month.

They were forced to release him on Friday last week because they had failed to complete the case file required for Adrian's indictment before the maximum legal detention period of 120 days was up.

"Today we plan to hold a meeting with the prosecutors to review the investigation progress and discuss the flaws in the dossier. Hopefully, we will complete it by next week," said Suyitno.

There is rising concern Adrian may try to escape from the legal action against him and flee the country once the travel ban imposed on him lapses on April 19.

"Travel bans can be extended and we will extend his travel ban to anticipate such an action," Suyitno said.