Police Must Reveal Fat Bank Accounts Data: Commission

Jakarta Globe, Ismira Lutfia | February 09, 2011

The Information Commission ruled on Tuesday that data on the 17 suspiciously large bank accounts of senior police officers could be deemed of public interest and hence must be made available to the public.

However, police said immediately after the ruling that they would appeal to the State Administrative Court.

The ruling was made in a non-litigation adjudication hearing filed last September by Indonesia Corruption Watch against the National Police after the latter refused to release details of their investigation into the accounts.

“The Information Commission has decided to grant the plaintiff’s motion in full and rules that the information containing data and figures of the 17 bank accounts belonging to police officers is open information,” Ahmad Alamsyah Saragih, the commission chairman, said at the hearing at the Constitutional Court building in Jakarta.

Abdul Rahman Ma’mun, a commission member, said that if police refuse to hand over the information after the verdict becomes legally binding — which happens if neither of the parties involved files an appeal within 14 days of the ruling — ICW could file a criminal suit that could see the police officials in charge of submitting the information face up to a year in prison.

Brig. Gen. Iza Fadri, head of the National Police’s legal bureau, said that while the police respected the Information Commission’s decision, they disagreed with its argument that disclosing information such as the bank account holders’ names and the exact amount in the accounts would not violate the privacy of the account holders.

“This is not a final verdict,” he said. “The interpretation [of the 2008 Freedom of Information Law] can vary, so we’ll have it verified again.”

The police had argued in the hearing that disclosing any information about the accounts would disrupt their probe into the case.

However, the court said it could not support that line of reasoning because the police had already conducted an internal affairs investigation into the account holders and cleared them of any wrongdoing in connection with the accounts.

Tama Satrya Langkun, the ICW researcher who helped bring the issue to the fore, said the antigraft watchdog would wait and see if police would really file an appeal. He said that even if they did not, the subsequent legal moves to get them to disclose the data could be complicated if they refused to comply.

“We certainly can’t file a criminal complaint against the National Police with the police, so we’d have to file an appeal instead,” Tama said.

In June, the weekly magazine Tempo — based on suspicious transactions noted by the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) — ran an in-depth report about the accounts as its cover story.

The Tempo office was firebombed by attackers shortly after the publication of the fat bank account issue, just days after Tama was assaulted by a group of unknown assailants.

No arrests have been made in either of these cases.

The National Police have since said irregularities were only found in three of the 17 bank accounts and that it had taken action against those implicated.

The three accounts that were found to be “improper” belonged to officers already convicted or on trial in other criminal cases.

In December, National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo announced the case of the suspicious bank accounts was closed and would not be reopened.