Indonesia drop charges against anti-graft officials

Indonesia’s attorney general will drop allegedly bogus charges against two senior anti-graft investigators at the centre of a bitter feud with police, an official said yesterday.
The culmination of a scandal that has gripped the nation for months is expected today when a Jakarta court is scheduled to approve an order to terminate the police probe, the official said.
“Their case will be stopped as it’s legally unworthy to be brought to the court,” Attorney General’s Office deputy for special crimes Marwan Effendi told reporters.
“Secondly... it will do more harm than good,” he added, referring to the need for “harmony” between police, prosecutors and the watchdog Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
KPK deputy chiefs Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Samad Riyanto were arrested in October for allegedly accepting bribes and abusing their power as they investigated corruption allegations against a local businessman.
But they were released less than a week later after KPK wiretap recordings of police, prosecutors and the brother of the businessman revealed an alleged conspiracy to frame the two anti-graft officials and cripple the KPK.
The revelations sparked protests and widespread public disgust at the workings of what President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called the “court mafia” that corrupts every level of the country’s judicial system.
Police and protesters clashed outside the KPK’s headquarters in Jakarta earlier Monday in the latest manifestation of anger at rampant corruption that persists despite Yudhoyono’s election promises to stamp it out.
A senior detective at the heart of the alleged plot against the KPK, Susno Duadji, has been removed from his post but police have so far refused to accept any wrongdoing or drop their allegations against the KPK officials.
Duadji infamously described the conflict between the police and the KPK as a fight between a crocodile and a gecko, unwittingly reinforcing the reptilian reputation of the police in the minds of many Indonesians.
Yudhoyono has rejected calls for the sacking of police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri and Attorney General Hendarman Supandji over the affair.