General 'arrested' over bribery case
General 'arrested' over bribery case
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Former National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Suyitno
Landung was detained on Thursday night for abuse of power during
his investigation of a lending scam at state Bank Negara
Indonesia (BNI) in 2003, sources say.
If confirmed, the three-star general would be the highest
ranking police officer ever to be taken into custody on criminal
charges.
An arrest warrant was issued for Suyitno after he was
questioned at National Police Headquarters in South Jakarta for
more than 10 hours on Thursday as a suspect in the case, a source
close to the investigation told The Jakarta Post.
Another police source and ANTV television station, quoting the
head of the National Police's anticorruption division, Brig. Gen.
Indarto, who is also the deputy head of the new team
investigating the BNI scam, confirmed the arrest of Suyitno.
However, Indarto, who worked under Suyitno during the original
investigation into the high-profile BNI case, under the
leadership of former National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar,
refused to confirm the report when asked by the Post.
Similarly, National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul
Alam declined to say whether Suyitno had been taken into custody,
saying he had to wait for the results of Thursday's
interrogation.
Suyitno was recently replaced by Comr. Gen. Makbul Padmanegara
as the chief of police detectives and is the current deputy
governor of the National Resilience Institute.
Suyitno was first questioned last week as a suspect on charges
of abusing his authority by accepting bribes in a case that
implicated him, his subordinates, BNI executives and
businesspeople.
He has admitted to having received a Nissan X-Trail, worth
more than Rp 300 million (US$30,000), from a businessman named
Ishak, one of convicted BNI embezzler Adrian Waworuntu's
accomplices.
Ishak had been detained for his alleged role in the scandal,
while Adrian was given life in prison by the South Jakarta
District Court.
Former National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko had
previously said Suyitno's investigation would be focused on the
car ownership.
Two of Suyitno's former subordinates -- former fraud squad
head Brig. Gen. Samuel Ismoko and Sr. Comr. Irman Santosa -- have
already been detained on similar charges of abusing their power
in the course of investigating the BNI case.
The BNI case centered on the issuance of fictitious letters of
credit by the state-run bank's Kebayoran Baru branch in South
Jakarta, causing the state to suffer some Rp 1.7 trillion (US$175
million) in financial losses.
The loan scam was made possible due to collusion between
certain bank officials and a number of businessmen linked to a
company called PT Gramarindo.
The police have also investigated other three-star generals
for separate crimes, including former head of general supervision
at the National Police Headquarters Comr. Gen. Binarto.
Binarto had resigned to face a police disciplinary committee
after an East Java Water Police officer admitted that he had been
ordered by Binarto to release a vessel that had been seized
carrying smuggled fuel off Surabaya. The vessel's owner was
reportedly a friend of Binarto.