Prosecutors fail to question governor

Prosecutors fail to question governor

Luh Putu Trisna wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Mataram

The West Nusa Tenggara prosecutor's office has been thwarted in
its attempt to question Governor Lalu Serinata as a witness in a
Rp 24.5 billion (US$2.7 million) graft case that was earlier
scheduled on Wednesday.

The interview had originally been scheduled for Wednesday.
However, prosecutor's office spokesperson, Maryadi IK, said the
governor's lawyers had sent a letter saying the governor could
not show up as he was on official business outside of the
province.

In the letter, the governor's legal advisers explained that
Lalu would willing to be interviewed upon his return.

The governor was scheduled to be questioned in connection with
a case involving mark-ups in the 2001 provincial budget. Twelve
people have already been charged as suspects in the case.

Nine of the suspects are former councillors, who have been
taken into custody, while the remainder are serving councillors
and are still free pending the Minister of Home Affairs' consent
for their arrest.

The governor's interview was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Wednesday
but the letter stating his inability to show up arrived at 12:15
p.m., more than three hours late.

Lalu Serinata had expressed his readiness to be questioned as
a witness on Tuesday.

Maryadi said the prosecutor's office was waiting for
further instructions regarding the rescheduling of the interview.

Meanwhile, officials from the provincial administration were
unwilling to discuss the governor's sudden departure.

But a source in the administration, who declined to be named,
said the governor had been summoned to Jakarta by Vice President
Yusuf Kalla.

The scheduled interview was the subject of much public
speculation after protesters attacked the prosecutor's office on
Monday in a show of force intended to secure the release of the
nine jailed graft suspects.

A group of people claiming to be community leaders urged the
prosecutor's office on Wednesday not to be discriminatory in
handling corruption cases.

One of them, Umar Tahir, criticized the prosecutors for
concentrating on the case involving the governor but not touching
other graft cases.

For instance, he said the prosecutors had not investigated
allegations of graft involving deputy governor Thamrin Rayes in a
case concerning the purchase of administration land worth Rp 525
million.

"If the legal process were to run according to the law, we
would accept it. But it's so discriminatory," Umar said.

Head of West Nusa Tenggara prosecutor's office, Zainal Arifin,
denied that his office was discriminatory in its handling of
graft cases.

"There's no such thing as discrimination here. The graft
investigation involving the deputy governor is much more advanced
than this (the governor's) case. In the deputy governor's case,
it only remains for some documents to be prepared by the police
before it can be taken to court," Arifin said.