Attorney General Urges Defiant Suspect La Nyalla to Heed Graft Probe
Jakarta. Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo urged the recently arrested graft suspect La Nyalla Mattalitti to cooperate with his interrogators, after he refused to answer questions in his high-profile embezzlement case investigation.
La Nyalla, who was named a suspect in the case late in March and then fled for Malaysia and finally Singapore, was only willing to answer questions related to his personal details during an interrogation session on Wednesday at the Attorney General's Office (AGO).
The Indonesian Football Federation (PSSI) chairman, who was deported from Singapore on Tuesday for overstaying his visa, had even refused to sign his examination report.
"I urge the suspect to cooperate with the legal process already underway," Prasetyo said on Thursday. "Don't complicate this process. We already have the required evidence."
Defying his interrogators, La Nyalla—accused of misappropriating Rp 5.3 billion the East Java administration paid in grants to the province's Chamber of Trade and Industry in 2012 when he served chairman—has insisted that his suspect status is legally invalid.
The Surabaya District Court has twice annulled his suspect status in pretrial rulings, but the East Java Prosecutors' Office on Monday again named him a suspect.
"These prosecutors are acting against the law. They have disobeyed the court verdict," said Togar Manahan Nero, a lawyer for La Nyalla who is currently being detained at the Salemba prison in Jakarta.
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