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.