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.