Susno Foments JK's Testimony

Former chief detective, Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji before the inquiry committee, Wednesday, confirms a number of statements by former VP Jusuf Kalla, at the House of Rep. building, Jakarta.

In his testimony Susno confirms that he received the command to detain Century Bank's owner, Robert Tantular, from the National Police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso, implementing the command given previously by Jusuf Kalla.

Robert was detained on November 25, 2008, two hours after the command came down from Jusuf Kalla. "The National Police chief pointed out, as commanded by the current VP that time, Jusuf Kalla, that they shouldn't loose Robert because his family has escaped abroad. At that time Robert was still in Jakarta. But several of his communication numbers have been monitored to be in Singapore already," said Susno.

Besides confirming the arrest, Susno also said that initially Bank Indonesia (BI) questioned whether the police had had enough evidences to arrest Robert. This concurs with Kalla's statement. Before the inquiry committee last week, Kalla said that the arrest was commanded because BI never came to the National Police regarding the banking crime suspicion done by Robert.

For the arrest, Susno formed two teams. One was led by himself, that went to BI, and the other went after Robert. "My team went to BI. There was a meeting at that time. I met Mrs. Fadjriah (deputy governor for monitoring). I reported that we were about to detain Robert Tantular, the owner and director (of Century Bank). When asked whether I had evidences, I said that we had evidences, but they would be completed within 1x24 hours."

To complete the evidences, Susno asked for a team from BI to assist the police. "BI thought there werent' enough evidences, almost all the meeting attendants said so. I said, if there weren't enough then we'd let him (Robert) go. I asked for BI's team to come that night, but no one came."

BI's team only came on November 27, 2008, two days after the arrest. "Even that was after I sent a letter to request the presence of a supervisor to back up the evidences. So, BI reported after Robert was arrested." said the former West Java police chief.

Former BI governor, now VP, Boediono denies of having received Kalla's order to report Robert to the police.