Legislator wants KPK deputies to testify to prove his innocence

A legislator charged with receiving bribes has requested that deputies of the corruption watchdog that detained him testify on his behalf because, according to him, the two went through the same process of meeting someone before undergoing screening for their posts.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle legislator Panda Nababan requested Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputies Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah to testify to prove his innocence in a bribery case surrounding the 2004 election of Miranda S Goeltom as Bank Indonesia senior deputy governor.
The two met him before undergoing screening for their current positions, in the same manner in which Miranda met him before the election for the bank position.
Panda, along with 24 other politicians, have been detained and stand accused of receiving traveler’s checks to ease Miranda’s way into the post.
The defendant believed KPK investigators had connected Miranda’s victory to a meeting between Miranda and PDI-P politicians at the Dharmawangsa Hotel in South Jakarta a few days before the election.
“Such meetings are common. Candidates present their ideas before lawmakers ahead of the election. In fact, Bibit and Chandra did the same thing before they were elected [as KPK leaders] in 2007,” Panda’s lawyer Patra M. Zein said.
Patra said Bibit and Chandra had met PDI-P members at the Sultan Hotel on two different occasions.
Chandra met Panda to ask for the latter’s support at the Business Center of the Hilton Hotel, while Bibit met him at the hotel’s Nipponkan restaurant.
“The two asked the party to support them in the race to become KPK leaders,” he added.
KPK investigators, he said, cannot use such meetings to base their accusation of bribery against Panda because they were a common practice.
“[By providing] testimonies from these two witnesses, there will be no perception that the meeting between our client … and Miranda Goeltom before the fit and proper test in the House of Representatives was a criminal act,” Patra said.
Bibit and Chandra were not immediately available for comment.