Susno Taken into Custody

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesia’s former chief detective-turned corruption whistle-blower was taken into custody Tuesday for allegedly accepting bribes, police said. In the latest graft scandal to engulf the country’s police force, General Susno Duadji was taken to a high-security detention facility where terror suspects are normally held, an officer said.

“Susno has been transferred to prison as investigators have found enough evidence to detain him. He broke anti-corruption laws and could be jailed for more than five years,” police spokesman Edward Aritonang told reporters.

The arrest comes after months of acrimonious infighting between senior police officers over their alleged involvement in the “judicial mafia” which critics say runs Indonesia’s courts on behalf of the rich and powerful. Duadji was headed for the very top of the police force until he was caught on a wiretap last year apparently conspiring to falsely imprison anti-graft investigators.

He was replaced as chief detective but remained in the force with full rank and salary. He denied any wrongdoing.

He has since launched a one-man campaign to name and shame top “case brokers” and was instrumental in exposing suspected judicial corruption surrounding the acquittal of an unusually wealthy junior tax official. That case has implicated senior police, a judge, a lawyer and a businessman, and renewed pressure on the tax department and the attorney general’s office to stamp out rampant corruption.

Duadji has threatened to reveal several other allegations against top police but the force has denied his arrest was a bid to shut him up.

“There’s no political interest or a revenge in this case,” Aritonang said. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged in November to dismantle what he called the “court mafia”, in which corrupt police, prosecutors, judges and “brokers” conspire to pervert justice.