Indonesian Parliament to Summon President, Top OfficialsThe Indonesian House of Representative (DPR) said Tuesday it will summon President Abdurrahman Wahid and some high-ranking officials in its bid to collect evidences as part of efforts to uncover multi-million graft scandals which are popularly known as Bruneigate and Bulogate.Bachtiar Chamsyah, Chairman of the House Special Committee on the Investigation Into Bulogate and Bruneigate, said that the committee will also summon Minister of Foreign Affairs Alwi Shihab and Attorney General Marzuki Darusman. "The Committee has reached an agreement during today's meeting to summon President Wahid, Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab, Attorney General Marzuki Darusman in their capacity as witnesses, in the two scandals," Chamsyah told a press conference after presiding over a closed-door meeting of the committee, indicating that the committee also has listed dozens of prospective witnesses. "We hope the questioning process of prospective witnesses can be started on October 17," he said, adding such a process will be held at the parliament building. There are strong suggestions that Wahid was involved at least in two graft scandals, namely the embezzlement of some 35 billion rupiah (5 million U.S. dollars) of the State Logistic Agency fund (Bulogate) and an alleged of misusing of two million U.S. dollars donation from Sultan Hassanah Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam (Bruneigate). In the last case, Wahid said he received the donation from Bolkiah, but adding it was a personal donation. An unconfirmed report said the fund then was disbursed by Wahid to finance a negotiation process between the Wahid administration and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which was carried out by the then state secretary Bondan Gunawan and Commander of the GAM T. Abdullah Syafei early this year. "The summoning of prospective witnesses, including the president and some top officials, is aimed at carrying out investigation to uncover the real fact and the truth in connection with the two scandal. That is also aimed at looking for the truth and upholding public accountability," Chamsyah added. Answering a question, Chamsyah said that, "So far we have not yet had a plan to summon officials from Brunei Darussalam. But it depends on the result of the investigation," Chamsyah said. |
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