Police have enough evidence to bring Adrian to court
Police have enough evidence to bring Adrian to court
P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A law expert said on Tuesday there was strong evidence of a
conspiracy between Adrian Wowuruntu and Maria Lumowa, key
suspects in the Rp 1.7 trillion (US$200 million) financial fraud
involving Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI).
"The evidence is strong enough to take Adrian to court, and
there will be no loopholes for Adrian's lawyers to pull their
client through," said Andi Hamzah of the University of Indonesia,
who is an expert witness in the case.
Andi said existing evidence proved that Adrian had accepted
several money transfers from Maria into his personal account.
"In this case, it can be said that Adrian not only abetted
Maria Lumowa, but he was also a co-conspirator in the crime," he
said.
Marwan Effendi, assistant prosecutor for special crimes at the
Jakarta Prosecutor's Office, said earlier that the police had
failed to provide adequate evidence to try Adrian.
Marwan said no documents existed to prove that any
transactions had taken place between Adrian and Maria, nor did
any documents exist bearing Adrian's signature to support Article
55 and 56 of the Criminal Code on aiding and abetting a crime.
National Police chief of detectives Insp. Gen. Suyitno Landung
Soedjono told The Jakarta Post that police had completed Adrian's
case file and had submitted it to the prosecutor's office on
Tuesday evening.
The police team investigating the case has asked Andi and two
experts from the Financial Transaction and Report Analysis Center
(PPATK), a money laundering watchdog, to help them provide solid
evidence to arrest Adrian, who has been released because his
detention period had lapsed.
The police had originally also named Andi's colleague
Harkristuti Harkrisnowo as an expert witness, but dropped her
from the list without giving any clear reasons for her omission.
Asked about the other four suspects currently detained at
National Police headquarters, Suyitno said the police had
determined Adrian's case as top priority.
The loan scandal involves the BNI branch in Kebayoran Baru,
South Jakarta, which channeled export loans without undertaking
proper appraisals to the Gramarindo Group and the Petindo Group
in order to finance the export of commodities to the Congo and
Kenya.
The exporting companies supported their loan requests with
bogus letters of credit allegedly issued by banks in Kenya,
Switzerland and the Cook Islands as collateral. The export never
materialized, hence BNI lost the money.