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

Makassar. Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar has announced that a team from his ministry is leaving for an undisclosed location to track down fugitive graft suspect Muhammad Nazaruddin.

“The team will leave tonight,” the minister said on Tuesday. “But the destination will not be revealed because it is feared he will escape again.”

He also declined to say how many people were in the team, only revealing that it included representatives from his ministry, the immigration office and the National Police.

When asked if the team was going to just confirm Nazaruddin’s whereabouts or try to bring him back to Indonesia, Patrialis said he expected the former Democratic Party treasurer to be repatriated. “Hopefully, there will be an extraction,” he said.

Nazaruddin left the country on May 23, for what he said was medical treatment in Singapore. His whereabouts are now unknown.

Patrialis said his ministry had coordinated with authorities in the destination country and informed them that Nazaruddin was a fugitive and his passport had been revoked.

He said the government was hopeful the country in question would cooperate in returning Nazruddin or, at the very least, “by allowing us to take him back to Indonesia.”

Speaking in Jakarta, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam confirmed that Nazaruddin’s whereabouts had been pinpointed. “We already know his position. What we need now is to coordinate with the local police,” he said.

But Anton also declined to name the country. “We don’t want him to run again,” he said.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) declared Nazaruddin a graft suspect on May 30 in a case linked to the construction of an athletes’ village in Palembang for November’s Southeast Asian Games.

He has already ignored three summonses for questioning by the KPK, including in another graft case linked to the Ministry of National Education.

Although in hiding, Nazruddin has unleashed a slew of graft accusations against many of his former Democrat colleagues, including party chairman Anas Urbaningrum. He has outlined many of his claims in SMS and BlackBerry messages to journalists, and most recently in interviews over Skype.

Nazaruddin has maintained his innocence of all the charges against him and has said he will return to Indonesia only once his allegations are investigated.

Meanwhile, Djoko Suyanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, and Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa both said they knew nothing about the Justice Ministry’s operation.

“If the police are part of the operation, they must report it to me. But up until now, there hasn’t been any such report made to me,” Djoko said.

KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas said its investigators were also looking for Nazaruddin. “We have formed a team and it is already in the field,” he said.

With additional reporting by Arientha Primanita & Ulma Haryanto