Hunt begins for convict Susno

Hans Nicholas Jong, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headlines | Sun, April 28 2013, 9:44 AM

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The Attorney General’s Office (AGO), the National Police and the Law and Human Rights Ministry have joined forces to capture graft convict and former National Police detective chief Comr. Gen. (ret) Susno Duadji, following the prosecutors’ failure to put him behind bars to serve his jail term.

Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana said on Saturday that the Immigration Office had received a letter on Friday from the Jakarta Prosecutor’s Office requesting its help in tracking down Susno.

“We’ll keep working together with the prosecutors to execute the court’s ruling on Susno,” he told The Jakarta Post. The Immigration Office, he said, had banned Susno from travelling overseas.

As of Saturday evening, the whereabouts of the disgraced former police general remained unknown.

South Jakarta Court chief Amir Yanto said on Saturday that the team tasked with finding Susno had not been able to locate his whereabouts. “I don’t even know whether he’s in Bandung or Jakarta,” he said.

AGO spokesman Setia Untung Arimuladi also said there had been no new information on Susno’s whereabouts. The AGO has rescheduled the execution of the court’s ruling on Susno to Sunday at the latest.

While the AGO has not yet decided to officially declare Susno a fugitive, the National Police have reportedly put him on their wanted list and have located five luxury houses in Jakarta, Bandung and Palembang that could be used as his hiding place, according to a media report. A police spokesman did not return calls from the Post for confirmation.

Susno remains free despite the Supreme Court in November last year upholding a guilty verdict with a three-and-a-half-year prison term for accepting bribes and misappropriating election security funds.

When the AGO and the Jakarta Prosecutor’s Office deployed more than 20 personnel to Susno’s residence in Bandung, West Java, to transport him to Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung on Wednesday, dozens of West Java Police officers helped Susno evade them.

In a much-criticized move, the police then escorted the disgraced former police general to the West Java Police headquarters. The incident was the second time Susno managed to evade prosecutors wanting to make him serve his three-and-a-half year jail term.

National Police Commission (Kompolnas) member Hamidah Abdurrachman said the West Java Police had gone overboard in protecting Susno.

Instead of protecting Susno, the police should have ensured his detention process went smoothly, Hamidah said. Susno refused to be taken to prison on the grounds that the Supreme Court ruling was flawed and should have been rendered void as it did not specifically order his detention.

He also reasoned that the Supreme Court letter was void since it contained an incorrect letter number of the South Jakarta Court’s verdict on his case.

According to Susno’s lawyer, Firman Wijaya, his client was currently under the witness protection program. He, therefore, could not reveal Susno’s location.

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