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Country reports: Asia and the Pacific
they have been invested in a ‘global investment mechanism’ or when the case is categorised as a civil case,2 as with the Federal Bank of Indonesia’s Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) case in 1998. Sukanto Tanoto, Samadikun Hartono, Sudjiono Timan, Adrian Kiki Ariawan, Bambang Sutrisno3 and other big-name corruptors resided in Singapore despite Indonesian requests that they be sent back to face trial. According to Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, around a third of Singapore’s 55,000 ‘high-net’ individuals, or around 18,000 people, are Indonesians with combined assets of US$87 billion,4 indicating that large amounts of wealth have been transferred to Singapore that would be difficult to recuperate if any of them were found to be tainted by corruption. ● The Timtas Tipikor, or corruption eradication coordination team, was wound up in May 2007, two years after it had been formed with a mandate to investigate and prosecute corruption in connection with sixteen stateowned enterprises, four ministries, three private companies and twelve escaped suspects. The team consisted of forty-five staff from the police, the attorney general’s office and the auditor’s office. Among its leading targets were Said Agil Hussein Al-Munawar, a former minister of religious affairs, and Taufik Kamil, a former director general of Islamic guidance and haj management, who were convicted in February 2006 of embezzling R750 billion (US$80.5 million).5 The Supreme Court turned down their appeals in August 2006, sentencing them to five and four years in prison, respectively, and ordering them to pay a combined total of R300.7 billion (US$33 million) in fines and confisca-
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tions. Timtas Tipikor put five cases on trial, losing one, and recovered an estimated R3.95 trillion (US$424 million) of state money.6 Its head, Deputy Attorney General on Special Crime Hendarman Supandji, was appointed attorney general of Indonesia in May 2007.
Corruptors fight back The fight against corruption was showing signs of improvement in the mid-2000s. Indonesia’s Corruption Perceptions Index score rose from 2.0 in 2004 to 2.2 in 2005 and to 2.4 in 2006.7 After his election in September 2004 President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised to crack down on corruption, and founded the Timtas Tipikor the following year. A survey by TI’s local chapter in 2006 showed further improvement in the government’s performance. This progress was set against the backdrop of an unprecedented set of corruption trials against senior officials, an ex-minister, a senior police officer, military officers, prosecutors, a judge, a governor, MPs and prominent businessmen. Amid these developments, a phenomenon known as ‘corruptors fight back’ emerged in late 2006. On 3 July Mulyana W. Kusumah, jailed in 2005 for attempting to bribe an auditor of the Supreme Audit Agency to give the General Election Commission (KPU), for which he worked, a clean bill of financial health, appealed for a Judicial Review by the Constitutional Court.8 One month later it was the turn of Professor Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, the KPU’s former chairman, who admitted in a fraud inquiry into the 2004 elections to having
Kompas (Indonesia), 21 May 2007. Kompas (Indonesia), 3 May 2007. Reuters (UK), 10 October 2006; Jakarta Post (Indonesia) 18 October 2007. See english.peopledaily.com.cn/200506/23/eng20050623_191796.html. Further information about Indonesia’s anti-corruption institutions and their failure to coordinate is available at kemitraan.or.id/newsroom/staff-articles/fast-tracking-anti-corruption-management. 7 TI, Corruption Perceptions Index 2004, 2005 and 2006. 8 Tempo (Indonesia), 27 August 2007.