Senior Supreme Court official questioned over bribery case
Senior Supreme Court official questioned over bribery case
JAKARTA (JP): A senior Supreme Court official was questioned
on Wednesday by investigators from the government-appointed Joint
Team to Eradicate Corruption (TGPK) as a suspect in a bribery
case.
Supreme Court secretary-general Pranowo and Supreme Court
director for criminal cases, Djoko Sarwoko, said on Thursday that
the Supreme Court Director for Administrative Cases, Zainal Agus,
had been questioned by prosecutors over the matter.
"He was not detained. Don't call this an arrest... He was
forcibly escorted to the Attorney General's Office because he had
been summoned twice over the matter but failed to show up," Djoko
told reporters at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The TGPK investigators assumed that Zainal Agus, a High Court
judge on loan to the Supreme Court as director for state
administrative cases, purposely did not show up for questioning.
The case, Djoko said, revolved around a state administrative
case tried at the Supreme Court.
"Zainal, according to the TGPK, is suspected of having
received a cash bribe from one party to the administrative case
to allow him to win. That's all I know," Djoko said.
Pranowo said that Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice, I Ketut
Suraputra, presided over the hearing of the case.
"The other members of the bench were Supreme Court justices
Suharto and Iskandar Kamil," Pranowo said.
He added that since Zainal was a High Court judge, the
Attorney General's Office must obtain a permit from the Minister
of Justice and the Supreme Court Chief Justice to question,
detain, or arrest him, as stipulated in Article 26 of Law No.
2/1986.
"Since the Supreme Court Chief Justice has not been appointed
as yet, there is no permit. Thus, the questioning can't go on,
for now," Pranowo told reporters.
Despite having accompanied Zainal during Wednesday's
questioning, Djoko Sarwoko totally denied knowing anything about
the case, except that TGPK investigators had received a report on
Zainal, who allegedly took money over a state administrative
case.
"Whether the party involved bribed his way to win the case via
Zainal is unclear," Djoko said.
"A director has no right to issue a ruling on a case. Only the
panel of judges hearing the case has that right," he added.
Meanwhile, TGPK public relations officer, M. H. Silaban, told
The Jakarta Post that a person had recently come to the TGPK to
lodge a complaint against Zainal.
"The person admitted to us, and filed a report, that an
amount, less than Rp 100 million, was paid to this Supreme Court
official (Zainal), so that this person who filed the report with
us could win the 1999 case. That's all I can say," Silaban said,
failing to elaborate further.
Similar case
Earlier on Sept. 29, the South Jakarta District Court accepted
a lawsuit brought by two Supreme Court justices against the TGPK
for conducting an illegal investigation into them over a bribery
case.
The plaintiffs' lawyers told the hearing that their clients,
Supraptini Sutarto and Marnis Kahar -- both named suspects by the
TGPK in a Rp 196 million (US$22,500) bribery case -- had been
illegally investigated as the investigation should have been be
conducted by National Police Headquarters or the Attorney
General's Office.
Having accepted the lawsuit, the district court ruled the
investigation to be illegal, an obvious setback to a move that
could have paved the way for the first ever trial in Indonesia of
top judges on corruption charges.
The case, which also involved M. Yahya Harahap, who has now
retired from the Supreme Court, concerned 17,000 square meters of
land in the West Java capital of Bandung which was disputed by
two parties -- namely the heirs to a certain Aksan as plaintiffs
and Sunata Sumali alias Sunanham as defendant.
A witness testified that he paid Justice Harahap Rp 96 million
in cash delivered to his residence, and Rp 50 million each to
Supraptini and Marnis, delivered to their offices, in November
1998, when the case was first heard by the Supreme Court. (ylt)