KPK Promises Open-and-Shut Case Against Top Lawyer Kaligis After Pretrial Victory
Jakarta. The Corruption Eradication Commission has promised an easy court win against a high-profile lawyer accused of bribing several judges, saying there was a wealth of evidence to ensure a conviction.
“Regarding the evidence [in the case], we are convinced from the beginning that we will win the case,” Indriyanto Seno Adji, a deputy chairman of the antigraft body known as the KPK, told reporters in Jakarta on Monday.
Indriyanto was commenting on the South Jakarta District Court’s decision on Monday to reject a pretrial motion lodged by Otto Cornelius Kaligis against the KPK, for naming him a suspect in a graft case.
Judge Suprapto ruled that Kaligis’s bid to have the charges against him thrown out – in a case that also involves judges from the Medan State Administrative Court (PTUN) and the North Sumatra governor, Gatot Pujo Nugroho – was invalid because the lawyer has already been indicted at the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court.
Alamsyah Hanafiah, who represents Kaligis, told reporters after the hearing that his client would submit a case review.
Another lawyer representing Kaligis, Humphrey Djemat, said the KPK had rushed the case to court simply to have the pretrial bid quashed on a technicality.
By law, a pretrial motion can only be heard if the person filing it has not yet been indicted on the charges being contested.
“There are irregularities,” Humphrey said of the KPK’s decision to expedite Kaligis’s case to the anti-corruption court, noting that the antigraft agency had not done so for its other suspects.
“The judge [Suprapto] failed to see this fact. The KPK kept postponing [the pretrial hearing] just so it would have time to file [Kaligis’s case] with the anti-corruption court,” Humphrey said.
Kaligis, who owns one of the largest law firms in Indonesia, was arrested last month at a hotel in Central Jakarta by KPK investigators after dodging summonses from the antigraft commission.
The KPK accuses Kaligis of bribing Judge Tripeni Irianto Putro, the chief of the Medan PTUN, in exchange for issuing a ruling in favor of one of the lawyer’s clients, the province’s treasurer, Ahmad Fuad Lubis, who allegedly misused social aid funds in 2012 and 2013.
Prior to Kaligis’s arrest, the antigraft agency had detained Muhammad Yagari Bhastari, a lawyer at Kaligis’s law firm, PTUN judges Amir Fauzi and Dermawan Ginting, and PTUN bailiff Yusril Sofyan in a sting operation. KPK investigators also confiscated Rp 250 million ($17,800) in cash believed to be bribes.
During the development of the case, the KPK also named North Sumatra Governor Gatot and his wife Evi Susanti as suspects for their alleged roles in bribing Tripeni, and arrested the pair.
The South Jakarta District Court verdict paves the way for further investigation into Kaligis’s involvement in the case by the KPK, Indriyanto said.
“Since the start of the pretrial hearing we have been optimistic [that the judge will quash Kaligis’s motion],” he said.
He dismissed the notion that the KPK had deliberately stalled the pretrial hearings so it would have enough time to move the case to trial.
“We just want a speedy trial [for Kaligis] as mandated by law,” Indriyanto said.
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