In a development that should surprise absolutely nobody, the police are dropping the corruption investigation into the National Police’s recently appointed deputy chief, Budi Gunawan.
Budi, as you no doubt remember, was at the center of a prolonged battle between the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) and the police force. The battle began when President Joko Widodo nominated Budi as his sole candidate for National Police Chief. Soon after the nomination was made public, the KPK charged Budi with corruption based upon evidence including his suspiciously fat bank accounts.
The police retaliated by forcing KPK commissioners Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto to step down over trumped up criminal charges.
The public battle between the two law enforcement agencies forced Jokowi to drop Budi as his nominee. But political pressure, as well as unprecedented pre-trial win for Budi against the KPK’s charges, forced the anti-corruption force to hand over their case against Budi to the Attorney General’s Office. Which then handed the case over to the police.
Now, the police are announcing they have dropped the case. In fact, they decided to drop it back in April after a joint case review involving police investigators and legal experts.
“No more follow ups [will come now that] the forum concluded that the KPK’s documents [on Budi] were not worthy of an investigation. Not to mention that the pretrial decision ruled that the KPK’s investigation was illegitimate,” National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim), Sr. Comr. Victor Edi Simanjuntak told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Victor claimed the police had solid reasons for dropping the case, as proven by the recommendation of two independent legal experts who also recommended dropping the case during the joint review.
However, the Jakarta Post followed up with those two legal experts, and found that one had never even been invited to do the case review. The other said the dossier against Budi contained weak evidence, but expressed suspicion that it might have been tampered with by the police before he saw it.
