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JAKARTA: Indonesian police have released two anti-graft investigators after wiretap recordings allegedly exposing a high-level conspiracy against the country's corruption watchdog were played in court.
Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairmen Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Samad Riyanto were released late Tuesday, six days after being arrested on suspicion of extortion and abuse of power, police said.
"For the sake of the larger interest and not because of any pressure, the police have decided their detention orders should be temporarily lifted," police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a press conference.
"But it doesn't mean they're free because freedom requires the certainty of the law. The court will determine right or wrong, not the police."
The move is a humiliating cave-in by the police in the face of mounting public anger over attempts to muzzle the KPK, which is seen as one of the only clean institutions in the country.
"This is an extraordinary gift," Riyanto was quoted as saying by the Detikcom news website after his release. "Our battle is still far from over, we will continue to fight corruption."
The pair still faces criminal charges including extortion, but the police case against them appears to have collapsed in light of the recordings.
Their release came hours after the Constitutional Court heard the secret KPK tapes of police, prosecutors and the brother of a corruption suspect apparently discussing plans to frame the corruption investigators.
The proceedings were broadcast live across the archipelago and fuelled a second day of street protests in support of the KPK on Tuesday.
The alleged conspirators talk about who they can find to provide false testimony to back up a bribery charge against the two officials, who were investigating a businessman.
Hamzah and Riyanto were suspended from duty in September and arrested on October 29. The tapes were played in court during a hearing into the legality of their suspensions.
In a further embarrassing about-face for the police, Soekarna said Anggodo Widjojo, the brother of the fugitive businessman, Anggoro Widjojo, had been detained for questioning.
One of the senior police officers at the heart of the alleged plot, chief detective Susno Duadji, and national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri are expected to be questioned separately by a presidential "fact-finding team".
The scandal has damaged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's new coalition government, formed last month after he won a landslide election victory on the back of promises to stamp out widespread corruption.
"It's proven to be a humiliating back-down for the police, and not just for Susno but also for police chief Danuri because he had emphatically supported Susno and the arrests," Australian National University analyst Greg Fealy said.
"This is another test of SBY's leadership, and he hasn't been passing too many of those tests in recent times," Fealy added, using Yudhoyono's nickname.
Yudhoyono has denied claims, made by one of the people heard in the KPK wiretaps, that he backed the plot against Hamzah and Riyanto.
But he has been criticised for doing nothing to strengthen the KPK against sustained attacks by the police and the Attorney General's Office.
In another case, sacked KPK chief Antasari Azhar is on trial for allegedly masterminding the murder of a businessman earlier this year. Azhar, a former prosecutor, says he is also being framed.
- AFP/so
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