FATF requests mutual legal assistance law
FATF requests mutual legal assistance law
Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog
sponsored by developed nations to curb money laundering, has
asked the government to formulate a special law on mutual legal
assistance that would enable Indonesia to share legal information
with other countries in the fight against this form of crime.
The law would basically allow a foreign country to participate
in investigating money laundering crimes in Indonesia, especially
where these are committed by the citizens of the country in
question.
This is part of a set of demands made by the FATF in order for
Indonesia to be excluded from the list of countries deemed
uncooperative in the global fight against money laundering.
Another demand is for the amendment of the country's existing
anti-money laundering law.
Yunus Husein, the chairman of the Financial Transaction and
Report Analysis Center (PPATK), said the article on mutual legal
assistance in the revised anti-money laundering law was deemed
insufficient.
"In article 44, mutual legal assistance only covers the search
for evidence. But the FATF wants to include the search for and
confiscation of documents, and other evidence that a crime has
been committed," Yunus told reporters on Wednesday.
The FATF considers mutual legal assistance to be crucial to
the fight against money laundering as it is a cross-border crime.
However, Yunus said the request would be difficult to accede
to as passing a new law would take a long time.
"We have told the FATF that this would be too difficult for
us. We have decided to include the question of mutual legal
assistance in the amendment law," he said.
Money laundering is the practice of converting money generated
from corruption, bribery, smuggling, bank-related crimes, drug-
related crimes, human-trafficking, gambling and terrorism into
legal investments.
The government has completed drafting the bill amending the
2002 anti-money laundering law, but this has yet to be debated by
the House of Representatives.
"The House of Representatives has scheduled the deliberation
of the amendment bill for Aug. 27, so hopefully before the end of
September, the House will have passed the bill," Yunus said.
The FATF will convene in early October. And if by that time
the deliberations have not been completed, serious financial and
economic sanctions may be imposed by the developed nations
against Indonesia, which some say could cause serious harm to the
country's economy.
The FATF has been demanding a revision of the anti-money
laundering law as some of the law's articles do not meet
international standards. For instance, the current law requires
banks and financial institutions to report suspicious
transactions valued at Rp 500 million or more. This clause will
now be replaced by one stipulating that all dubious transactions
have to be reported to the authorities.
Elsewhere, Yunus also urged the government to issue a
presidential decree to provide a stronger legal basis for the
PPATK.
The PPATK is a body tasked with analyzing and investigating
questionable financial transactions.
At present, the body is still funded by Bank Indonesia. Yunus
said that the government had yet to disburse some Rp 8 billion to
finance the operation of the PPATK. The funds were supposed to
have been disbursed in July.