Police extend detention of suspect in BNI scam
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Police have extended the detention of Edi Santoso, one of the key suspects in the Bank National Indonesia (BNI) scandal, for another 30 days to assist the investigation.
"We will follow the standard procedure by notifying the Attorney General's Office that we will detain Edi for another 30 days as we need to question him further," National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko said on Tuesday.
Edi has been detained by the police since Oct. 3. According to the law, he should be handed over to the Attorney General's Office within 30 days of his first being taken into police custody, provided that the police have not submitted a letter extending his detention.
Soenarko also said that the police had submitted application letters to begin their investigations (SPDP) to the Attorney General's Office right after the suspects were arrested.
"The claim that we haven't submitted the suspects' SPDPs to the Attorney General's Office in the BNI case is not true," said Soenarko.
Soenarko also denied suggestions that no progress had been made in the case over the Idul Fitri holiday.
"We kept on investigating the case during the holiday. We even summoned three directors of BNI last week to get more information about the case," he said.
However, he declined to mention the names of the three BNI directors or the results of the investigation so far.
The BNI scandal centers around 41 bogus letters of credit worth Rp. 1.7 trillion that BNI passed on to a number of subsidiary companies of the Gramarindo Group, which were claiming they were exporting commodities to a number of African countries.
Police have been investigating the case for three months and have detained 12 suspects so far. But the main suspect, Maria Pauline Lumowa, the owner of the Gramarindo Group, is still at large in Singapore.
The lack of significant disclosures about the three-month investigation has raised doubts among the public at large despite the arrests.
Rumors have been rife that several politicians from the Golkar Party are implicated in the case. Three Golkar party presidential aspirants -- Gen. (ret) Wiranto, Golkar party chairman Akbar Tanjung, and Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla -- have all denied the rumors.