Official, experts push for use of lie detectors

By Joko E.H. Anwar

JAKARTA (JP): A Cabinet minister and experts have urged law enforcers to start using lie detectors in probing crime cases, particularly high-profile scams, many of which remain unresolved.

Contacted by The Jakarta Post over the weekend, the officials said the use of detectors, also known as polygraphs, did not violate any rules.

According to Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, the tool "can speed up" investigations.

"We (the country) already have lie detectors but they have not been used optimally," Marzuki said over the phone on Sunday.

He, however, suggested that they should only be used by qualified personnel.

Senior legal expert Bismar Siregar said law enforcers should be open to new developments in technology to help garner the truth from suspects and witnesses, regardless of the absence of laws regulating the use of the device.

"We don't have to wait for a regulation, just use them.

"If detectors at ports could detect illegal business, why should we reject (the use of the device)?" he said.

Deputy secretary-general of the National Mandate Party (PAN) Bara Hasibuan said polygraphs should be used in the investigations of top-priority cases, such as the July 27, 1996 attack on the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) Headquarters, Baligate and the most recent Bulogate scandal.

"It's time to use lie detectors to find out who gave false confessions," Bara said.

Criminologist Mulyana W. Kusumah from the University of Indonesia said the results of the polygraphs were valid and used in many other countries.

But, he added, the results only stood as supporting indicators for the law enforcers to verify a person's statement.

"It's legally acceptable, but only as an indicator, just like a tape recorder," Mulyana said.

National Police detectives have so far named only civilians in the 1996 bloody attack on the PDI Headquarters in Central Jakarta. Like in many other cases, most of then top military, police and government officials repeatedly denied their alleged roles in the attack.

Last year's Bank Bali scandal, which was linked to former president B.J. Habibie's administration, involved Rp 546 billion in taxpayers' money and was also unresolved because investigators failed to explain what happen to the money after suspects and witnesses made contradictory statements.

The public fears that the ongoing investigation of the Rp 35 billion Bulog (the State Logistics Agency) scandal, which allegedly involved people close to President Abdurrahman Wahid, will also end in a mystery.

An executive from the newly founded Indonesian Police Watch, Adnan Pandupraja, from the School of Law at the University of Indonesia, said that a lie detector test could be used as the last option when police investigators were no longer able to collect information from a person.

"A lie detector is used as a device to pressure a suspect during questioning so that he or she is no longer able to deny involvement in something," Adnan said on Saturday.

Lie detectors were developed as a scientific method to uncover lies by measuring the physiological changes in a person's body which the devices are believed to be able to show when he or she tells a lie.

The machine records changes in the pulse and blood pressure, breathing and galvanic skin response, which is the amount of moisture secreted by the skin.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on their homepage states that polygraph testing could decrease the overall cost of investigations, and provide valuable investigative leads which could not otherwise be developed due to a lack of evidence or other noteworthy information.

But Col. Saleh Saaf of the National Police information unit said he did not support the use of polygraphs in police questioning.

"In any criminal case, the police aren't solely after the suspect's confession," he said, adding that the police should be able to resolve an investigation from the available hard evidence and witnesses' cross checked statements.

"Let them (the suspects) lie. It's their right," Saleh said.

According to Saleh, polygraphs were not effective when used on certain people.

"A cold-blooded person will not show changes in their pulse," he said.

Separately, police detectives in the East Java capital of Surabaya used polygraphs on Saturday in questioning Soemarjono, a prime suspect in the production and distribution of counterfeit local currency valued at billions of rupiah.

Legal expert Adi Andojo, a former Supreme Court justice, said that the results collected from the use of lie detectors in probing a case would later face difficulty in the courts due to the lack of a ruling.

"There are only five types of legal evidence, namely from witnesses, suspects, experts, documents and investigative leads which have to be supported by other evidence," Adi said on Saturday.

Bara of PAN said that Indonesia still has no laws that regulate the use of polygraphs.

But, he said, police and the attorney general's officials have the right to seek the most effective way of investigating a case.

"If (polygraphs) can raise the quality of an investigation, why not (use them)?" Bara said.