Ministry, police to join in Manulife scandal probe

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has been coordinating with the National Police Headquarters to investigate assets belonging to the three commercial court judges who declared PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife Indonesia (AJMI) -- a subsidiary of Canadian insurance giant Manulife Financial -- bankrupt.

The ministry's spokesman, R.A. Tjapah, said on Friday that their investigating team was cooperating with the police because the team itself had not been granted access to bank accounts of individuals or groups.

He said Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra met with National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar a few days ago to discuss the investigation.

Indonesian Banking Law has a bank secrecy code that prohibits other parties, excluding the police and investigating prosecutors, to access bank accounts of individuals or groups for the sake of a legal investigation.

"We (the Ministry) request two kinds of police assistance. The first is to help us access the bank accounts of these judges, and the second is to continue the investigation should our preliminary investigation find the judges had been bribed.

As reported earlier, last month, the three judges -- Hasan Basri, Ch. Kristipurnami Wulan, and Tjahyono -- of the Jakarta Commercial Court declared AJMI bankrupt as it had failed to pay a dividend earned in 1999 to its previous partner, the now defunct PT Dharmala Sakti Sejahtera (DSS).

DSS filed the bankruptcy petition against AJMI over an unpaid dividend.

Following the controversial verdict, the justice ministry set up a team from the Inspectorate General to launch an investigation by focusing at first on the three judges.

The team's members are Asril Azis Munek, Milton Hasibuan, and Ngadikun Daliputro.

Yusril initially said the results would be disclosed within 10 days, but then extended it saying his men needed more time.

Tjapah said many witnesses had refused to testify before the team on whether the judges had been bribed.

The team has also planned to probe Kristi's daughter, Dyah Widowati Candradari, for a possible link between the judges and her, since the latter is reportedly an associate of Lucas, a lawyer for the Dharmala Group, which also supervised DSS.

Tjapah said Friday's investigation focused on questioning Kalisutan, a former curator of AJMI, at his office in West Jakarta.

None of the Ministry's officials, including Inspector General Koeslan Reksodirdjo were available on Friday to comment on the results of the investigation.