Police give up, ask the KPK to take over probe into BNI scam
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Frustrated by their inability to complete case files on the main suspects in the scam involving state bank BNI 46 and the resulting low recovery of state losses, police have decided to allow the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to take over the probe.
National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Tuesday KPK intervention was needed after the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office returned the case file of the main suspect Adrian Waworuntu for the sixth time. Police submitted on Monday the case file for the seventh time.
The investigators, Da'i said, have been trying hard to collect evidence to complete the dossiers of all main suspects, including Adrian, but the prosecutors found them incomplete.
"We have been stretched to the limit in completing the case files. We have nothing more to convince the prosecutors, and in fact, we have offered the case to the KPK to handle," said Da'i.
According to the law, the KPK can take over cases from the police or state prosecutors if the two institutions halt their investigation into a case or hand over the case voluntarily to the KPK.
The KPK, an antigraft super body, has the authority to tap or tape-record conversations, order banks to freeze bank accounts belonging to suspects, ask bank authorities to provide data on the financial condition of suspects, order a travel ban and ask help from Interpol or other overseas law enforcement institutions to search for and arrest graft suspects and seize their assets overseas.
Da'i said that the KPK had been involved in the investigation into the bank scandal for months and therefore was quite familiar with the difficulties the police were facing.
The case files of several other suspects, including the Baso brothers, Jeffry and Judi, are being completed by the police.
The main suspect in the case, Maria Pauline Lumowa, the owner of Gramarindo Group, has fled the country. She has denied allegations that she had swindled the money.
Of 15 suspects in the case, Koesadiyuwono and Edi Santoso from BNI Kebayoran Baru branch office have been convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison and life respectively. Other suspects are being tried in the South Jakarta District Court.
Aside from bringing main suspects to justice, the police have come under fire for failing to recover assets of the state-owned bank.
BNI management and lawyers said the police managed only to recover Rp 1 billion (US$108,000) out of Rp 1.3 trillion in state losses resulting from the scam. The police claimed, however, to have confiscated the bank's assets worth over Rp 200 billion.
KPK member Erry Riyana Harjapamekas said that the commission had not been notified about the police's offer.
"We have not received any official request from the police. However, we are ready to handle the case," said Erry.
While hailing the plan, lawyer Frans H. Winarta asserted that both the police and the prosecutors could be blamed for the protracted process in the case.
"The police can be considered incapable of gathering solid evidence, while the prosecutors appear to lack the resolve to handle the case," he said.
The police, he said, were known to lack capable personnel to investigate such a delicate case and were prone to external influence.
The scam, one of the largest banking scandals, centered around several businesspeople from Gramarindo and Petindo Groups who received money from the second largest bank in the country between 2002 and 2003 by using fake letters of credit from correspondent banks in Congo and Kenya to withdraw money from BNI's Kebayoran Baru branch.