Within a week of one-time graft suspect Budi Gunawan being inaugurated as deputy police chief, the boys in brown have tried to arrest three officials from the antigraft commission that initially charged him. Coincidence? Hardly.

Budi, whose nomination as police chief was withdrawn in January because of the pending investigation by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), was sworn in on April 22. A day later, police briefly arrested Bambang Widjojanto, a suspended deputy chairman of the KPK — only to be ordered in no uncertain terms by President Joko Widodo to release him.

This past Tuesday, April 28, police in Makassar, South Sulawesi, tried to pull the same stunt with the suspended KPK chairman, Abraham Samad. But thanks to the tenacious efforts of his lawyers, working mostly on a pro-bono basis, Abraham was out again in a few hours.

And on Friday, the police targeted KPK investigator Novel Baswedan, again eliciting a chiding from the president. Police were scheduled to release Novel by early Saturday.

Antigraft activists may cheer at the releases, but these are minor victories in a dirty war being waged by dirty cops. With Budi Gunawan and his sycophant Budi Waseso, whose office is responsible for the arrests, appearing to act in defiance of explicit orders from police chief Badrodin Haiti to leave the KPK alone, Indonesia has a serious problem on its hands.

Let’s call it like it is: the charges being leveled against the KPK officials are trumped up — a retaliation for their audacity in going after a police general. All of Indonesia can see this. But we need Joko and Badrodin to see it, too, to acknowledge that there is an evil in the system that needs to be purged.

The post Editorial: Purge the Dirty Cops From the System appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

Source: The Jakarta Globe