KPK urged to lift Budi’s suspect status

JAKARTA. Maqdir Ismail, a member of the legal team of National Police chief hopeful Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, has called on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to lift his client’s graft suspect status in compliance with Budi's pretrial decision.

If the KPK declined to lift the suspect status, he said, it would be violating the law.

“Now they [the KPK] must execute the court’s verdict. Now, not in the immediate future,” he said after the pretrial hearing at the South Jakarta District Court on Monday.

He acknowledged that he had yet to receive information on the next step the KPK would take in regard to the court’s verdict.

“The KPK should accept [the court’s verdict],” said Maqdir.

Judge Sarpin Rizaldi, who issued the pretrial decision on Monday, said the KPK’s move to name Budi a graft suspect was not valid because Budi was not a law enforcer or public official when he was chief of the National Police’s Career Development Bureau from 2004 to 2006, besides the fact that Budi's case did not cause public unrest or state losses.

The KPK named Budi a graft suspect on Jan. 13, a day before he underwent a confirmation hearing before the House of Representatives’ Commission III overseeing legal affairs.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has suspended Budi's inauguration as new police chief because of his graft suspect status.

The court's verdict now paves the way for the President to swear in Budi as the new police chief.