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Police insist top KPK investigator go to court
Jakarta Post - February 24, 2016
National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Agus Rianto questioned the AGO's claim that it lacked evidence to proceed with the case against Novel.
"We respect whatever decision has been made but the statement that the case lacks evidence contradicts the prosecutor's previous decision to declare [Novel's] case dossier complete," he said at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta.
Agus said that if the AGO had lacked evidence for the case to be tried in court, the AGO would have notified police investigators about it. However, the Bengkulu prosecutor's office, which handled Novel's case, had accepted the case dossier and had even submitted it to the Bengkulu District Court for a court hearing.
On Monday, the AGO dropped
the controversial case and claimed that the evidence investigators had
compiled was unreliable. AGO junior prosecutor for general crimes Noor
Rachmad said that a gun presented by the police as evidence had been registered
under the name of "Polres Bengkulu" instead of "Polresta Bengkulu", as
it was
initially coded.
Noor also indicated that the police had not found anyone who had witnessed the alleged assault. The AGO also cited the case expiry date, Feb. 18, as another reason it had decided to drop the case.
Novel was accused of shooting two robbery suspects during his tenure as Bengkulu Police chief detective in 2004. However, the National Police reopened in the case in 2012 after the KPK senior investigator led a graft investigation into then National Police Traffic Coprs chief Insp. Gen. Djoko Susilo.
On order from then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono the police decided to halt the probe, but police investigators dug it up last year in a second standoff between the antigraft agency and the police, reportedly due to one-time police chief candidate Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan's graft suspect status.
The KPK's move to name Budi a suspect in January last year voided his inauguration as National Police chief, a position that was eventually handed over to former National Police deputy chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti.
Novel's case was scheduled for trial on Feb. 16 but Attorney General M. Prasetyo withdrew the case two weeks earlier following an instruction from President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to settle the cases as soon as possible.
Former KPK commissioners Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto had also been named as suspects for minor offences but the AGO has since strongly insinuated that these cases would also be dropped.
Agus said that the National Police would not be looking into the case anymore. "We already handed it over and it has been declared complete, what other evidence should we look for? There is no need to do so. The National Police fully respects the AGO's decision," he said.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan applauded the AGO's move to drop Novel's case. However, he also denied that Jokowi had demanded the case be dropped as "the President has never intervened [in Novel's case]. The President had only asked that it be settled quickly".
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/02/24/police-insist-top-kpk-investigator-go-court.html.
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