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Police seeking to drop Abraham, Bambang cases

Jakarta Post - March 3, 2015

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Jakarta – Acting National Police chief Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti said police were still approaching those who have filed reports against suspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) leaders, Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto, for their consent to drop the legal cases.

"We will provide an explanation, but it is not a certainty. We will approach the case-filers to have the legal cases dropped," he said after attending an Indonesian Military (TNI) and police leadership meeting in Jakarta on Tuesday.

He argued that the report-filers would likely prefer to see the investigations continued, but said, "With our approach, [hopefully] the informants can [be made to] understand the current situation and [we can win] get their agreement to drop the cases."

He said that during the time it took to persuade informants to rescind their reports, investigations of the suspended KPK leaders would continue because the two had already been named suspects.

Bambang was named a suspect for allegedly directing witnesses to give false testimony when the Constitutional Court was trying a West Kotawringin election dispute in July 2010.

Abraham has been named a suspect in two different cases. In the first, he allegedly helped Ferriyani Lim, a woman from Pontianak, West Kalimantan use ID and family cards to apply for a passport to the immigration office in Makassar in 2007; in the second case, he allegedly abused his power as KPK chairman by lobbying to become a vice presidential candidate with elite figures of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) ahead of the July 9, 2014 presidential election.

Badrodin said police would suspend investigations into the two reports filed against KPK deputy chairmen Adnan Pandu Praja and Zulkarnain because the two cases had not yet been investigated.

The KPK's move to hand over the Budi case to the AGO and the police's plan to suspend all legal cases implicating KPK leaders were apparently part of a comprehensive settlement to the recent police-KPK conflict.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo recently asked the KPK, the AGO and the police to end sectoral egoism and create better synergy in the fight against corruption. (rms)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/03/03/police-seeking-drop-abraham-bambang-cases.html.