Camelia Pasandaran | June 06, 2011
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the arrest and return of graft suspect Nunun Nurbaeti, who is now believed to have fled to Cambodia, officials said on Monday.
“The president’s instruction to the foreign minister is clear — to facilitate [Nunun’s return] for the ongoing legal process,” said Teuku Faizasyah, a presidential staffer on foreign relations.
He said the process to bring back Nunun, whose passport was revoked on May 27, was “already ongoing.”
The whereabouts of the businesswoman, suspected of being the go-between in the long-running bribery scandal linked to Miranda Goeltom’s appointment to Bank Indonesia, are unclear.
Her husband, lawmaker Adang Daradjatun of the Islam-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), earlier claimed his wife was in Singapore seeking treatment for a condition that “makes her forgetful.”
On Monday, though, Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar said Thai authorities informed him that Nunun had left their country for Phnom Penh in March.
“It was on March 23, but I don’t know where she is now,” Patrialis said, adding that the government received the information on Sunday.
Akbar said the Indonesian Embassy was trying to gather intelligence as to whether she was in Cambodia.
Faizasyah said that although Indonesia and Cambodia did not have an extradition treaty, Nunun’s deportation could be achieved through strong ties between the nations.
He added that the government was working to pinpoint the precise whereabouts of Nunun.
“The mechanism to ascertain this could be through Interpol or through immigration channels,” Faizasyah said.
He said that once Nunun was located, diplomatic and legal efforts would be made to ensure her return.
Golkar Party lawmaker Bambang Susatyo said the government should not only revoke Nunun’s passport. He said there were many Indonesian nationals on the run.
“It would be unfair if passport revocation was only taken against Nunun, and that only the case against her was made public,” Bambang said.
He said there were many corruption suspects and convicted criminals who had fled abroad, and that their passports should also be revoked.
Bambang also demanded that the police, the Attorney General’s Office, the Justice and Human Rights Ministry and the Finance Ministry publicly disclose the latest information they had collected on persons on their most wanted lists.
He said all state institutions should have little tolerance for suspects who went overseas to avoid legal trouble.
“If this approach does not yield anything and the fugitives clearly have no intention [of returning], then just revoke their Indonesian passports,” Bambang said.
Additional reporting by Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Anita Rachman
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