Revenge and Personal Ambitions Poison Role of Law-Enforcement Agencies, Analysts Say

Jakarta Globe, Heru Andriyanto, June 20, 2010

Antasari Azhar said he was targeted in a murder case by law enforcement agencies because of his role as head of the Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK. (Antara Photo)

Major law agencies appear to be used increasingly by their leaders to pursue personal interests, avenge rivals and protect their cronies while paying little heed to upholding justice, according to legal experts.

Revenge and attempts to protect troubled members of those agencies were overshadowing their real mission of fighting crime, experts said over the weekend.

They highlighted many controversial cases, from the murder trial of Antasari Azhar to the charges against two antigraft commissioners and the rise and fall of the National Police’s Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji.

“While this continues to happen, a graft suspect like Anggodo Widjojo could win a case against the Attorney General’s Office while sitting in his cell and force the court to order the trial of two antigraft officials,” said Andri Gunawan, secretary general of nongovernmental group Indonesian Judicial Watch Society (Mappi). “This is of course not what we expect from our judicial system.”

He said law agencies such as the National Police and the AGO were themselves prone to internal rivalries because senior officials tended to group with colleagues of the same graduation class or who came from the same region, noting that the inner circle at the AGO was dominated by officials from Central Java.

“They form small factions inside the agencies so that’s why they don’t appear as solid entities,” Andri told the Jakarta Globe. “Such a phenomenon is also true in the military, but they can manage the issue much better.”

There is a growing belief that law-enforcement agencies often bring charges against their own members or others out of vengeance and with the intention to show which agency is stronger.

Antasari said he was targeted in a murder case because of his role as head of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

He has said prosecutors eagerly pursued the death sentence in his trial because his first major achievement in the agency had been uncovering a humiliating bribery scandal at the AGO.

Antasari, now serving an 18-year jail term, was an AGO official for 25 years before taking the helm at the antigraft body.

“KPK at that time successfully uncovered major corruption cases involving government officials, lawmakers and law enforcement officials,” Antasari said in his Jan. 19 defense against the death sentence demand. “But why should someone’s life be sacrificed just to see the KPK rid of me?”

Susno, the former chief of detectives, was detained by police as a graft suspect not long after he implicated his colleagues in the controversial trial of tax official Gayus Tambunan, whom he said had paid billions of rupiah to law enforcers who fix the case.

Susno also openly accused two police generals of taking bribes from the taxman.

“Susno is the whistle blower and because of his information many law enforcers, including police, were implicated in the case. If he didn’t hit the police, would he become a suspect in another case? If the answer is no, then Susno’s arrest was nothing but a retaliatory measure,” said Muhammad Assegaf, a lawyer for both Susno and Antasari.

“As for Antasari, prosecutors sought the death sentence for him, while in many other murder cases they only recommend a jail sentence. I think you know the reason why.”

Susno earlier made news in September when he controversially slapped criminal charges against KPK deputy chairmen Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto.

In an interview with a local magazine before the two became suspects, he compared the KPK-police rivalry as the battle between a gecko and crocodile, police being the latter, but he later denied having said so.

In an e-mail supposedly written by Susno circulated at that time, he described how he was offended by the KPK’s tough measures against a former police chief and that the commission was so powerful that everything it did was accepted by the public.

Susno neither denied nor confirmed writing the message.

When the Chandra-Bibit case fell apart following indications that police and prosecutors helped fabricate the case, Susno was removed from his post amid mounting public pressure and he later shocked police with his report about Gayus.

“It’s not the first time police have got tough on their own members deemed as not loyal. During the leadership of Bimantoro, he detained eight mid-ranking officers who had opposed his nomination for police chief by then president Gus Dur [Abdurrahman Wahid],” said Neta Pane, chairman of nongovernmental group Police Watch.

“They were detained for three months without trial when Bimantoro eventually won the top post.”

But Susno was the first three-star police general to become the target of “institutional revenge,” he said.

Low pay is often blamed as the main reason for corrupting prosecutors or policemen, but Amdri disagreed.

“If they were paid more, then people would just have to increase the bribe for their service,” he said, half-jokingly. “I agree they should increase the budget for police and the AGO to a reasonable level, but don’t just give a carrot while forgetting the stick.”

The AGO’s tough approach into the Antasari case, Susno’s anger at the KPK, police’s measures against Susno and the counterattack by the disappointed detective “might have constructed a pattern, but we need to remain fair in making the judgments,” said Andrianus Meliala, a criminal law expert from the University of Indonesia.

“We cannot build a theory based on a series of events that already happened, because it might prove wrong in future events. I still believe the country’s judiciary system is on the right track toward the supremacy of law.”