The Jakarta Post
Saturday, February 20, 2010 12:45 PM
Something `fishy' behind tycoon-related drug case
Arghea Desafti Hapsari , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta
The judicial corruption taskforce confirmed there was something suspicious
behind the arrest of a drug suspect connected to tycoon Tomy Winata after their
visit to a detention center.
Susandi "Aan" Sukama, an employee of a fishery company, a subsidiary of Tomy's
Artha Graha Group, has been detained at Cipinang penitentiary for alleged drug
possession.
"Aan is being charged with possession of narcotics. But there are, in fact,
*judicial corruption* practices behind this that are a lot bigger. Those
*practices* are what we need to further investigate," said Denny Indrayana, a
member of the taskforce.
"We will make this information available to the public at the right time," he
said.
Aan has spent more than two months in detention after the Jakarta Police found
him carrying narcotics in his wallet on Dec. 15 last year. The former employee
of PT Maritim Timur Jaya in Tual, Southeast Maluku, claimed the police had
illegally arrested, detained and assaulted him.
The assault and arrest occurred after he was summoned to the Artha Graha
building in Jakarta for interrogation by Maluku Police last December, as a
witness for his former employer, David Tjiau, in connection with an illegal
stockpile of firearms on Tual Island.
Aan said that he was assaulted during the interrogation and was later handed to
the city police after a pill containing amphetamines was found in his pocket.
He said that he believed police had planted the pill in his pocket.
Earlier this month, a court turned down Aan's lawsuit over his arrest and
detention by the city police.
On Friday, Denny and another taskforce member, Mas Achmad Santosa, visited Aan
in his cell in the Cipinang detention center in East Jakarta.
Also among the visitors were two members of the police's internal affairs
division (Propam) and a representative from the Victim and Witness Protection
Agency (LPSK).
The meeting with Aan, which took over three hours, provided enough information
on the judicial corruption practices in Aan's case, Denny told the press.
Denny said the modus was not unusual.
Edwin Partogi from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence
(Kontras), who has been assisting Aan throughout his trial, speculated that a
certain party covered the Maluku Police's travel expenses to the capital.
"Their visit to the Artha Graha building was not in coordination with the city
police," he added.
After hearing Aan's testimony, the taskforce concluded that it was necessary to
put him into the witness protection program.
Denny said Aan would be replaced to a safer location on Friday.
The taskforce is working to eradicate corrupt judicial prac-tices, which are
rampant across Indonesia.
Denny said his team had so far received 277 reports of corrupt judicial
practices from the public since the taskforce's inception in late December last
year.
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