KPK will continue to arrest transplant suspects despite Luhut’s criticism

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Jakarta. The Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, has no plans to back down from its commitment to arrest and prosecute high-level corruption suspects, its chairman said on Tuesday.

“I order every member of the KPK service to take decisive legal action against corruption suspects without a doubt, including making arrests,” Firli Bahuri said at the year-end press conference in Jakarta.

His remarks came a week after Chief Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan criticized the commission for being too aggressive in arresting people, saying KPK’s numerous anti-corruption busts had harmed Indonesia’s reputation on the international scene.

“These anti-corruption raids are not really good, they have hurt our nation,” Luhut said at an event where Firli also attended.

But the anti-corruption czar reaffirmed that the KPK is an independent body that must not be defeated by elite pressure.

“The KPK is a state agency of executive power which, in carrying out its duties and mandate, is not under any influence of the powerful and does not bow to anyone,” Firli said.

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The KPK was established in 2004 as an ad hoc body after the government declared corruption an “extraordinary crime” that required original policies and measures that went beyond the work of traditional law enforcement agencies. law such as the police and the prosecutors office.

It has since arrested 1,519 suspects, including ministers, governors, mayors, district chiefs, businessmen and other high-profile figures.

Over the past eight years, the KPK has recovered 3.3 trillion rupees ($211 million) in stolen state assets, Firli said.

In this year alone, the KPK has carried out 10 anti-corruption busts and arrested 149 suspects, 38 more than a year earlier. The suspects include two Supreme Court justices, four district chiefs, two mayors and a state university chancellor, among others.

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