Calls Mount for Immunity for KPK Leaders From Police Prosecution
Jakarta. Indonesia’s antigraft commission has called on President Joko Widodo to issue an emergency measure granting immunity from prosecution for its leaders, following two criminal complaints filed in quick succession against two of its deputy chairmen.
“KPK leaders need immunity, especially at times like this,” Adnan Pandu Praja, a deputy chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, said on Sunday as quoted by Detik.com.
Adnan and fellow deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto face criminal investigations after reports were filed against them with the police this month following the KPK’s decision to name Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, Joko’s sole nominee for National Police chief, a graft suspect.
“The request [for immunity] has been submitted to the president,” Adnan said. “We want it to take the form of a regulation in lieu of law,” or perppu, which does not require approval from the House of Representatives.
“If the president wants this crisis to be over soon, he needs to issue an SP3” – an order to halt the police’s ongoing investigation – “and then the perppu,” Adnan added.
He said such a measure was not meant to put the KPK leadership above the law, but to protect it from its “enemies,” given the police’s history of going after KPK commissioners when its own top officials face an antigraft probe.
“Criminalizing the KPK means hampering corruption eradication efforts,” Adnan said.
The call was echoed by the Indonesian Ombudsman, which said it would demand immediate passage of a regulation granting immunity to the KPK leaders.
“On Monday we will appeal for the leaders of the KPK to have [legal] immunity,” Budi Santoso, an ombudsman, said on Sunday as quoted by Republika.com.
“In the laws, the KPK [leaders] don’t have immunity, which leaves the commission prone to criminalization,” he added, referring to a previous episode in which trumped-up charges were leveled, and later debunked, against KPK deputy chairmen Bibit Samad Riyanto and Chandra M. Hamzah.
“The right to immunity needs to come into effect immediately – at least issue a perppu,” Budi said.
Denny Indrayana, the deputy justice minister under former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, agreed that a perppu on immunity for the KPK’s leaders was urgently needed in such an emergency situation.
“One by one the KPK leaders are being targeted. The president must issue the perppu to grant the KPK leaders immunity during their tenure,” he said.
Adnan was reported to the police’s detectives unit on Saturday by Mukhlis Ramlan, a representative for Desy Timber, a company operating in Berau, East Kalimantan. The report accuses Adnan, who served as a lawyer for the company in 2006, of illegally taking over 85 percent of shares in the company while the management was involved in a family feud.
Bambang’s case has been brought forward under similarly murky conditions. He stands accused by a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party, or PDI-P, of compelling witnesses to perjure themselves during hearings over a district election dispute in 2010. Bambang at the time was a lawyer for one of the parties in the dispute, who was eventually declared the winner of the election.
The case was dropped by the police after the Constitutional Court ruled on the dispute, but was refiled by the PDI-P official, Sugianto Sabran, earlier this month, following the KPK’s decision to name police general Budi Gunawan a graft suspect.
President Joko, from the PDI-P, has since put off the process of naming a new police chief. Budi previously served as the security aide to Joko’s political patron, PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Tags: Keywords: