Police detain suspect Nurdin after seven-hour grilling
Police detain suspect Nurdin after seven-hour grilling
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The National Police has detained lawmaker Nurdin Halid shortly
after questioning him for seven hours on Wednesday as a suspect
of smuggling 73,000 tons of sugar into Indonesia.
The police were unable last month to detain Nurdin, who chairs
the Confederation of Primary Cooperatives Association (Inkud), as
he was admitted to Sukanto Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East
Jakarta, after a nine-hour interrogation.
The police resumed interrogating the suspect on Wednesday
after doctors deemed him fit for questioning.
National Police director of fraud Brig. Gen. Samuel Ismoko
said Nurdin was placed under custody to speed the investigation.
"We began questioning him at 9 p.m. after picking him up at
the hospital. We will not let him return to the hospital, as we
believe he is recovered," said Ismoko.
Before his four-week hospitalization at Sukanto in mid-July,
Nurdin was rushed to Pertamina Hospital, South Jakarta, after the
nine-hour grilling, when he was officially declared a suspect.
According to his lawyers and police, Nurdin lost consciousness
after the questioning, and Pertamina doctors found him in good
shape, but suffering from exhaustion.
The police admitted Nurdin to Sukanto hospital for treatment.
As police and doctors at Sukanto were tight-lipped about
Nurdin's condition and reasons for his hospitalization,
suspicions surfaced that they were attempting to protect the
high-profile graft suspect.
Sr. Comr. Bimanesh Sutejo, the head doctor treating Nurdin,
told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the legislator was
declared fit on Aug. 12, as a previously detected stomach
inflammation had receded.
Ismoko said the investigation would focus on Nurdin's role in
the sugar smuggling.
"As Inkud chairman, he must be aware of any large transactions
involving his organization.
"We will charge him under the Anticorruption Law, because the
government had paid foreign investors for the sugar through his
organization. Now, the sugar is illegal, but the state disbursed
funds for it," he said.
Ismoko said the sugar smuggling involving Inkud had caused
billions of rupiah in state losses.
The sugar smuggling case surfaced after a farmers' association
reported on June that they found 73,000 tons of smuggled sugar at
several warehouses in Jakarta, Bogor and Makassar, South
Sulawesi.
Police said the sugar belonged to Inkud and named eight
suspects, including Nurdin's brother Abdul Waris Halid, Effendy
Kemek, Abdul Badar Saleh and Jack Tanim.
Three officials from the customs and excise office and Raja
Benarje of PT Phoenix, which had exported the sugar, were also
named suspects in the case.
However, police recently changed Raja's status to witness.
Meanwhile, customs and excise authorities questioned Abdul
Waris for allegedly breaching regulations by storing the sugar in
port warehouses without documentation.
Abdul's lawyer Edison Petaubun said customs officials had
completed their investigation and planned to submit their case
file to police next week.