•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Jakarta. A lawyer on Tuesday filed a civil suit against the National Police chief and the attorney general seeking a public apology for having falsely claimed they were in possession of wiretapped phone conversations incriminating two antigraft commissioners.

“There are no such recordings. So they simply told a lie. Now we want the police chief and the attorney general to publicly admit that,” Sugeng Teguh Santoso told reporters after registering the suit at the South Jakarta District Court.

The legal action demands that National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri and Attorney General Hendarman Supandji publish an apology in five newspapers, have it broadcast by 11 TV stations and pay Rp 10 million ($1,110) in damages.

“It’s not a big amount but we need the money to cover the expenses of the legal proceedings until it reaches the Supreme Court,” said Sugeng, who said he represented a group called People’s Voice Against Arbitrary Criminal Charges.

Hendarman told lawmakers late last year that police and prosecutors had secured recordings proving the extortion and abuse of power charges against Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit Samat Riyanto, deputies of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

The phone conversations allegedly involved suspected case broker Ary Muladi and Ade Rahardja, the chief of enforcement at the antigraft agency.

But when the judges in the graft trial of businessman Anggodo Widjojo — who claimed to have paid the KPK officials Rp 5.1 billion in bribes — ordered the recordings to be presented as evidence, police initially gave no response but later said the recorded conversations were merely phone call data.

The call data record, which only logs the phone numbers and the date and time of a call, were not presented to the court either.

“We have evidence to prove that police and prosecutors had earlier boasted about the recordings. We have many witnesses to testify for us, including lawmakers, Ary Muladi and Ade Rahardja,” said Sugeng, who is also an attorney for Ary.

Ary was initially named a suspect for channeling Anggodo’s money to antigraft officials but he was later released for lack of evidence. However, the KPK last month renamed Ary as a suspect for obstructing justice along with Anggodo.

AGO spokesman Babul Khoir Harahap denied the office had lied about the recordings and refused to issue an apology.

“We don’t need to apologize because we did not tell any lie,” Babul said, claiming that in the Nov. 9, 2009, meeting with lawmakers, Hendarman never said anything about the recordings.

“We have asked for a video record of that meeting and couldn’t find such remarks,” Babul said.

Meanwhile, the KPK said the police on Monday had handed over call data records alledgedly proving telephone contact between Ade and Ary.

The records were delivered in a sealed envelope, KPK prosecutor I Kadek Wiradhana said. “We haven’t opened it yet because the records are requested by the court.” He added that only the judges should have access to it.

Meanwhile, Anggodo’s lawyers told the Anti-Corruption Court on Tuesday that his client had never attempted to bribe Bibit and Chandra to halt an investigation into the dealings of his brother, graft fugitive Anggoro.