AGO Never Serious About Ending Prosecution of KPK Deputies, Experts Say

Jakarta Globe, Heru Andriyanto, April 23, 2010

A recent court ruling that overturned the decision by prosecutors to discontinue a criminal case against two antigraft officials has raised questions about the competence and intentions of those who originally handled the case.

According to the ruling, the two deputies from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) — Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto — are officially suspects again for abuse of power and extortion.

The South Jakarta Prosecutor’s Office last December issued a letter known as an SKPP to halt the prosecutions, for what it termed “sociological reasons.”

At the time, legal experts suggested that a better, stronger, option would have been to adopt a legal principle left over from Dutch colonial system known as “deponering,” in which prosecutors drop a case in the common interest even if they possess solid evidence against the suspects.

“The attorney general [Hendarman Supandji] should have opted to adopt the legal principle [of deponering] because it completely eliminates any opportunity for the injured party to appeal,” Eddy Hiariej, a criminal law expert from Gadjah Mada University, told the Jakarta Globe on Friday.

Marwan Effendy, the deputy attorney general for special crimes, said prosecutors opted to issue the SKPP as a speedy response to rising public pressure for the case against the KPK officials to be dropped.

“Any delay would have brought us daily criticism. Deponering would have taken longer to prepare because we would have needed to consult first with relevant state agencies,” Marwan said.

“We had no problems with the presidential office, but [House of Representatives] Commission III urged us to bring the case to court. Under the law on court proceedings, the court is barred from rejecting a case, so it was less likely the court would have supported [the application of] deponering in this case.”

Eddy, however, dismissed this argument, saying deponering did not require House approval.

“What the attorney general needed to do was to consult with relevant law enforcement agencies such as the National Police and the KPK,” he said.

Chairul Huda, a law lecturer at Jakarta’s Muhammadiyah University, said the Attorney General’s Office halfheartedly terminated the case because it did not want to lose face after previously declaring it had a strong case against Bibit and Chandra.

“I think the AGO lacked seriousness in dropping the case, because it knew very well that the decision letter from the district prosecutor’s office could easily be dismissed by a court ruling,” he said.

“If they had planned to drop the case for a good cause, they would have picked the most appropriate avenue, namely deponering,” Chairul added.

“Their argument that bringing the case to court would have done more harm than good was baseless, because the law doesn’t recognize such a reason.”

The South Jakarta District Court on Monday ruled that the district prosecutor’s letter was unlawful because the Criminal Procedures Code did not recognize the “sociological reasons” used to drop the charges against the KPK deputies. The judge also said that once prosecutors had declared a criminal case fit for trial, it must be go to court.

The decision favored a motion filed by graft suspect Anggodo Widjojo, who is being detained by the KPK for attempting to bribe its officials and obstructing justice.

Anggodo disputed the termination of the Chandra and Bibit case. He claimed he had paid the two deputies and other officials Rp 5.1 billion ($565,000) through a middleman to halt an investigation into his brother, graft fugitive Anggoro Widjojo.