The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) questioned Jeffrey Manuel
Rawis on Monday in connection with the scandal surrounding the
construction of the Southeast Asian Games athletes’
village.
Jeffrey, a journalist with Antara news agency, allegedly helped former
Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin deliver bribes to
Angelina Sondakh in the case.
Nazaruddin was convicted of
receiving bribes and sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison for
his role in the scandal, while fellow politician Angelina has been
named a suspect in the case.
Jeffrey was questioned as a witness
in the KPK’s probe of Angelina based on testimony given by Nazaruddin’s
confidante Mindo “Rosa” Rosalina Manulang in January
Rosa said
that Jeffrey allegedly accepted Rp 5 billion (US$541,491) from her to be
given to Angelina to secure the contract for the construction project
for PT Duta Graha Indah.
Rosa said that she ordered Luthfi
Ardiansyah, a driver employed by the Permai Group owned by Nazaruddin,
to give the money to Jeffrey at the House of Representatives’ compound.
Rosa testified that she only knew Jeffrey by his first name and as a member of Angelina’s staff.
Another
of Nazaruddin’s subordinates, Yulianis, said in January that Jeffrey
once called her about the Rp 5 billion request, about which she later
told Rosa.
According to Yulianis, Rosa told her that Jeffrey was
a member of Angelina’s staff and gave Yulianis consent to channel the
money upon Nazaruddin’s approval.
Luthfi told the court that the delivery was made, alleging that he did not know the identity of the man who accepted the money.
The man brought the money to Wayan Koster’s office and later saw Angelina come to the room,
Luthfi said.
“I had nothing to do with the project,” Jeffrey said after questioning at the KPK on Monday.
Jeffrey confirmed that he did know Angelina as he was once assigned to cover the House.
“Investigators asked me whether I knew [Rosa]; I told them I did not. I don’t know Yulianis either,” he said.
Jeffrey
said Rosa might have mistaken him for another person named Jeffrey
working as a bagman for Angelina, adding that he only knew about Luthfi
from the news.
Nazaruddin and Angelina were both members of House’s budget committee when the contract was awarded.
Jeffrey said that the KPK’s investigators had questioned him only on his connection to Angelina and not about money.
He said that he knew Angelina because they were relatives from the same village in Manado, North Sulawesi.
“I’m family; we come from the same village [....] I’ve known her since she was a second-grader.”
However, Angelina’s father, Lucky Sondakh, claimed not to know Jeffrey.
Jeffrey
refuted Lucky’s statement. “He can make such a statement, but we are
family. Family does not necessarily mean we are related by blood,”
Jeffrey said.
Jeffrey is not the first journalist to be mentioned at the trial.
In
February, KPK prosecutors implicated Manpower and Transmigration
Minister Muhaimin Iskandar in a different bribery case centered on
infrastructure projects
in Papua.
A recorded conversation
between Iskandar “Acos” Pasojo, purportedly to be one of Muhaimin’s
“special aides”, and Imam Syukri, a Jakarta-based journalist, asked that
Muhaimin not be mentioned in the case.