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A senior official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who has been detained as part of an ongoing corruption investigation threatened on Tuesday to sue another suspect in the case for alleging that he had channeled Rp 3 billion ($327,000) of ill-gotten money to high-ranking officials in the ministry.

Ade Wismar Wijaya, who was recently demoted from his post as the ministry’s financial bureau chief as a result of the scandal, was responding to an accusation by Ade Sudirman, one of his former subordinates at the ministry.

Sudirman claimed that Wismar had passed on money obtained by inflating the travel costs of ministry officials to a former foreign minister and the ministry’s former secretary general, Imron Cotan.

“AS [Sudirman] once handed a sum of money to our client, but it was never passed on to the people mentioned in his testimony. The money has now been returned in full to the state coffers,” said Edy Dwi Martono, a lawyer for Wismar. He said the amount refunded was Rp 3 billion.

“We have the right to sue him [Sudirman] for slander and we are thinking of taking that option,” the lawyer told reporters at the Attorney General’s Office, where his client was being questioned for the first time as a suspect in the case.

Sudirman had earlier testified that he had been asked by Wismar to provide at least Rp 3 billion in cash for the then foreign minister and secretary general from money collected by inflating the costs of air travel for diplomats. He claimed to have passed on the money, but could not provide evidence.

In his testimony, Sudirman also said money went to lower-level officials and bureau heads at the ministry, and he presented receipts to prosecutors that he said backed his claim.

Sudirman’s job in the ministry’s financial bureau was to verify bills submitted by officials for reimbursement from the state budget. He failed to answer a summons last week from the AGO, citing poor health.

Edy dismissed the testimony, saying there was no evidence to support the claims. The lawyer suggested that Sudirman may have kept the money and used it to finance his political ambitions.

“There are strong allegations that AS used the money for personal gain,” Edy said. “He has run in local elections several times, including twice for the post of Pandeglang district head, was nominated as the deputy gubernatorial candidate for Banten province, and his two children ran in the Pandeglang legislative election.”

Wismar did not deny that he had a 25 percent stake in travel company PT Indowanua Inti Sentosa, which had been providing air tickets to the ministry since 1984. The suspect bought into the company in 2004, when the ministry posted him in Washington.

Sudirman’s lawyers were quick to deny the allegation that their client had used the money for his personal benefit.

“Now it is their turn to provide proof to support their claims,” said Holidin, a lawyer representing Sudirman.

“We have already obtained evidence indicating who took the [Rp 3 billion] fund. It was Ade Wismar himself,” the lawyer said, adding that his client had secured a receipt from Wismar and an admission from a middleman who claims to have handed the money to Wismar’s representative.

A third suspect in the case, Syarwanie Soenie, president director of Indowanua Inti Sentosa and a former ministry official, was detained along with Wismar last Wednesday.

An AGO spokesman, Didiek Darmanto, said a final estimate of state losses as a result of the case had not yet been determined, but it could reach to at least Rp 20 billion.