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.