AGO issues travel ban on gov, mayor

Panca Nugraha, The Jakarta Post, Mataram | National | Fri, August 29 2008, 10:45 AM 

Ervyn Kaffah criticized the prosecutor's decision. He said that the ban would not be effective in stopping graft. "It seems that the prosecutor tries to create an excuse by publishing the banning letter, since so far, they (the AGO) failed to complete the investigation. It's actually not easy for the suspects to go abroad," said Ervyn

Jakarta Post. The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has issued a letter, asking the provincial prosecutors office to ban from traveling abroad the West Nusa Tenggara governor, Lalu Serinata, the Bima mayor, Nur Latif and three former members of the legislative council.

The travel bans on the five suspects are due to alleged involvement in graft cases now under investigation.
"The ban aims at preventing them from traveling abroad to escape from these cases. They have to follow some rules on questioning and investigations conducted by the prosecutor," said West Nusa Tenggara prosecutors office deputy head Abdul Wahab Hasibuan, on Thursday.


Hasibuan revealed that his office received the AGO's letter last week.

Serinata was named as a suspect after a series of investigations conducted by the AGO.
He allegedly committed mark up practices and fictitious plans in the 2001, 2002 and 2003 regional budgets when he was the chairman of the local legislative council, causing a state loss of Rp 24.5 billion (US$2.6 million).

The AGO questioned and investigated Serinata in May and handed the investigation over to provincial prosecutors.

However, the investigation is delayed as the prosecutors have not yet received an approval letter from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to question 11 members of the West Nusa Tenggara legislative council as witnesses in this case.

"We are still waiting for the approval letter from the President to question the legislative members as additional witnesses in this case," Hasibuan said.

Prosecutors are also investigating Bima mayor Nur Latif for having allegedly misappropriated the 2005-2007 municipality's special and general budget allocations, worth Rp 36 billion.
"We have not questioned Nur Latif yet, as we have not yet received a letter of permission to investigate him," he said.

Besides the travel ban on Serinata and Nur Latif, the attorney general is also preventing three former legislative council members from traveling abroad. They are Rahmat Hidayat, Abdul Kappi and Abdurrahim.
"We also suspect them of involvement in Serinata's graft case as they were on the budget committee at that time," said Hasibuan, adding that they were members of the 1999-2004 local legislative council.

Hasibuan added that his office would cooperate with relevant institutions, like the immigration services and police, to keep an eye on the banned persons.

Separately, the coordinator of People Solidarity for Transparency in West Nusa Tenggara, Ervyn Kaffah criticized the prosecutor's decision. He said that the ban would not be effective in stopping graft.
"It seems that the prosecutor tries to create an excuse by publishing the banning letter, since so far, they (the AGO) failed to complete the investigation. It's actually not easy for the suspects to go abroad," said Ervyn

He added that this case actually had been going since 2003 but, thus far, the prosecutors had not yet started serious investigations.

Ervyn was unsure that the prosecutor would successfully complete these cases and hoped that the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) would take over the investigations.

sumber: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/08/29/ago-issues-travel-ban-gov-mayor.html