Prosecutors seal houses of KPUD graft suspects
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.