Prosecutors seal houses of KPUD graft suspects
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office on Friday placed an official seal on the entrance to a house belonging to Jakarta Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) chairman Muhammad Taufik, a suspect in a case of alleged corruption involving Rp 13 billion (US$1.37 million) of city funds earmarked for the 2004 elections.
Following the sealing of the house, no one may enter or leave it without the consent of the investigating prosecutors.
However, they were unable to gain entrance to the house, which is worth Rp 1.7 billion and is located in the Raffles Hills housing complex in Cibubur, East Jakarta, as the keys were in the possession of Taufik's wife, who was not in the house when the prosecutors arrived.
"We will forcibly enter the house later if we don't get the keys. We need to secure evidential documents that we believe are probably in the house," said prosecutor Bangkit Sorbin.
Taufik is currently being detained in a detention center run by the South Jakarta Prosecutor's Office.
On Thursday, the prosecutors had also sealed the house of another suspect, election commission treasurer Neneng Euis Palupi. The house is located in Telajong village, Cikarang Barat subdistrict, Bekasi.
Although the prosecutors found the house empty, they recovered three bags of KPU Jakarta documents that Neneng had entrusted to her neighbor before being detained in the Pondok Bambu Women's Penitentiary in East Jakarta earlier this month.
In one of the bags, the prosecutors found rubber stamps bearing the names of a restaurant and a catering firm.
"We suspect the stamps were used to forge bills and receipts," Desy Meuthia Firdaus, another prosecutor involved in the investigation, was quoted as saying by Tempointeraktif.com on Thursday.
The third and last suspect to be charged by prosecutors to date is KPU Jakarta member A. Riza Patria.
Riza is now being detained in the Salemba Penitentiary, Central Jakarta.
The head of the investigation, Syaeful Taher, said on Friday that the assets of the three suspects, as well as their spouses and children, would soon be sealed or frozen.
The investigation into alleged corruption in the KPU Jakarta was commenced following reports from the City Council's Commission A for legal and administrative affairs, which found a number of irregularities in goods and services procurements.
The prosecutors later found that six out of nine companies offered contracts by the KPU Jakarta in 2004 had supplied fictitious addresses, making it difficult for prosecutors investigating graft in the commission to track down the owners.