Indonesia anti-graft body summons Supreme Court judge over bribery scandal

The Corruption Eradication Body (KPK) has so far detained six suspects it believes are involved in facilitating 2.2 billion rupiah ($146,520) in bribes to secure a favourable ruling in an appeal by a lending cooperative facing insolvency. KPK chairman Firli Bahuri earlier on Friday publicly urged Supreme Court judge Sudrajad Dimyati and three others to surrender.

Indonesia's anti-corruption body was on Friday preparing to question a Supreme Court judge as a suspect in a bribery scandal, in one of the most high profile magistrates to face investigation for graft. The Corruption Eradication Body (KPK) has so far detained six suspects it believes are involved in facilitating 2.2 billion rupiah ($146,520) in bribes to secure a favourable ruling in an appeal by a lending cooperative facing insolvency.

KPK chairman Firli Bahuri earlier on Friday publicly urged Supreme Court judge Sudrajad Dimyati and three others to surrender. "We all have work to do on how we can clean this nation from corruption," he told a news conference.

Judge Dimyati did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations on Friday. A Supreme Court spokesperson said the judge would cooperate with investigation and local television showed live pictures of him reporting to the agency.

KPK carried out raids in Jakarta and Semarang this week and detained six people, Firli said, seizing cash from the home of a Supreme Court official worth nearly $148,000, the majority of it in Singapore dollars, some concealed in a hollowed-out dictionary. A lawyer from the lending cooperative on Friday told reporters at the KPK that he was ready "to be punished as severely as possible", according to local media.

The KPK was established in 2002 after the fall of late President Suharto, whose rule many critics said as kleptocratic. The agency has won public support for taking on powerful figures, including high-profile politicians, businesspeople, a top judge and a former minister jailed in 2021 for 12 years for taking kickbacks in the procurement of pandemic assistance packages.

President Joko Widodo was elected in 2014 on a platform to fight graft but some critics say the KPK's powers have since been curtailed by a revision to a 2019 law. The government denies the agency has been hobbled.

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