Said named suspect in haj case
Said named suspect in haj case
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Former minister of religious affairs during the Megawati
Soekarnoputri administration, Said Agil Hussein Al-Munawar was
named a key suspect on Thursday in an alleged graft case
involving hundreds of billions of rupiah collected from Muslim
haj pilgrims.
Head of the inter-departmental corruption eradication team
Hendarman Supandji, who is also the deputy attorney general for
special crimes, said investigators found that Said was actively
involved in the corruption scandal.
"Based on our investigation results, Said has violated the
anticorruption laws, thus we have to declare him a suspect in
this case," Hendarman told The Jakarta Post.
He was referring to Law No. 31/1999 on Corruption Eradication
and Law No. 20/2001, an amendment of the previous law.
On Wednesday, the anticorruption eradication team also named
Taufiq Kamil, the non-active director general of Islamic guidance
and haj management at the religious affairs ministry, as a
suspect in the same case.
"Both Said and Taufiq are responsible for (misappropriation)
in the management of unused money from haj pilgrimage costs,"
Hendarman alleged.
However, he refused to detail the roles of the two suspects,
but promised to explain it during a news conference scheduled for
Friday.
"We will question him (Said) on Monday as a suspect and we
will determine whether to detain him or not after the
questioning," Hendarman said.
He said he had notified the immigration office to issue travel
bans on the two suspects in order to prevent them from fleeing
abroad or evading justice.
On Tuesday, the National Police decided to freeze the bank
accounts belonging to the religious affairs ministry, with a
total of Rp 684 billion (US$72 million) in them, which have been
collected from prospective pilgrims.
The move came after the police received an audit report from
the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP), which revealed a
series of irregularities by the ministry. The finding sparked
suspicions of a major corruption scam.
Under Law No. 17/1999, the money should have been stored in a
single account and managed properly for the pilgrims' benefits.
Starting from 2003 however, the funds were split into separate
accounts and were being used for things unrelated to the haj
pilgrimage affairs, such as salary bonuses, housing compensation
and management funds for religion ministry officials.