JAKARTA: The Attorney General's Office (AGO) and the National Police sought to project unity amid speculation over strained relations sparked by overlapping high-profile corruption cases, though observers warn the apparent thaw could come at the expense of Indonesia's anticorruption efforts.
Attorney General Sanitiar Burhanuddin welcomed National Police chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo to the AGO headquarters in Jakarta on Monday (July 13), where they pledged to strengthen cooperation between their institutions and dismissed suggestions of a rift.
"I and the National Police chief are not rivals or at odds with each other," Burhanuddin said after the meeting, describing Listyo as a longtime friend during a livestreamed press briefing.
"There is no problem between our two institutions," Listyo added. The meeting came after public scrutiny over what many observers viewed as an institutional standoff triggered by a police investigation targeting former assistant attorney general for special crimes Febrie Adriansyah.
Investigators searched a residence in Sentul, Bogor, West Java, last week as part of the probe and seized Rp 476 billion (US$26.3 million) in cash and 74 kilograms of gold bars.
The top prosecutor, who had led the special crimes division since 2022, resigned on Saturday, hours after admitting that the Sentul house belonged to him, while denying any wrongdoing.
Later that day, the police named him and lawyer Don Ritto as suspects in alleged graft and money laundering cases linked to several state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
Also on Saturday the police transferred the case to the AGO’s special crimes division “to expedite the investigation,” acting assistant attorney general for special crimes Rudi Margono said, adding that Febrie had not been detained because investigators would first examine the case files and evidence.
Don, however, was arrested by the police on Friday. Speculation that Febrie had traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform the umrah pilgrimage was dismissed by AGO spokesperson Anang Supriatna on Monday.
Asked whether Monday’s meeting touched on the cases involving Febrie, both Burhanuddin and Listyo declined to comment.
Questions over commitment
The public display of unity came shortly after the AGO ordered district prosecutors nationwide to stop collecting field data from nutritious meal service units (SPPG) as part of its investigation into alleged corruption in President Prabowo Subianto's free meals programme.
The investigation, launched last month, has so far named seven suspects, most recently Brig. Gen. Lalu Muhammad Irwan Mahardan, an active police officer who served as deputy secretary for promotion and cooperation at the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), which oversees the programme.
Anang from the AGO, however, rejected suggestions that the investigation had been scaled back, saying prosecutors had only suspended data collection because the allotted period for gathering information had expired, while the investigation into the suspects continued.
Zaenur Rohman of Gadjah Mada University's Center for Anti-Corruption Studies (Pukat UGM) questioned the rationale behind halting the data collection.
“What was the basis for ordering the data collection in the first place? Was it intended to thoroughly investigate alleged corruption in the free meal programme, or was it meant to strike back at the police?” Zaenur told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday (July 14).
He said the decision created the impression that the AGO and the police had reached a behind-the-scenes “settlement”, particularly after the police submitted the Febrie case files to prosecutors.
"The halts represent a setback for anticorruption efforts and attempts to uncover irregularities in the free nutritious meal programme," he said.
Transparency International Indonesia (TII) researcher Agus Sarwono similarly warned that ending data collection prematurely could weaken efforts to uncover the full corruption scheme and leave other beneficiaries untouched.
“The question is whether the data collected is sufficient to expose the entire rent-seeking network, or only enough to implicate certain actors who have already come to light,” Agus said.
He added that solidarity between law enforcement agencies should not come at the expense of accountability.
Criminal law expert Abdul Fickar Hadjar also described the decision to halt data collection as procedurally unusual, saying it appeared aimed at defusing tensions between the AGO and the police.
Stopping data collection could eventually bring the investigation to a halt altogether, he warned, a move that would only benefit those involved in corruption in the free meals programme. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
