KPK QUESTIONS INDONESIAN MOVIE STAR

Jakarta, March 12 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) questioned movie star Herman Felani here Friday in an advertisement corruption case.

Accompanied by his lawyers, Felani met the KPK's summons at 11.00 am local time to be questioned as a witness in the corruption case that allegedly involved some Jakarta city government officials.

According to one of Felani's lawyers, Alamsyah Hanafiah, his client was the managing director of PT Global Vision.

The Global Vision's role was just distributing the advertisement products. It was not the Jakarta provincial government's appointed company to conduct its advertisement-making project, he said.

The project itself was handled by another company appointed by the Jakarta city government.

Therefore, his client knew nothing about the alleged corruption in the project, he said.

KPK investigators had summoned former head of the Jakarta city government's legal bureau, Journal Effendy Siahaan.

He was alleged to have caused the state to suffer material losses of Rp3.9 billion from 10 percent payment that he illegally gained from those handling the Rp5.6-billion worth project.

The KPK investigators had also questioned the Indonesian Education TV Station (TPI)'s Corporate Secretary Wijaya Kusuma in the advertisement project case.

Kusuma said he was questioned for three hours regarding the TPI's role in broadcasting the public advertisement.

The advertisement making project was done by some production houses while TPI just broadcast the ads. Therefore, he knew nothing about the alleged corruption in the project, he said.

Since its founding in 2002, the KPK has been handling big corruption cases in the country. Besides government officials, the KPK also summoned corrupt members of parliament.

This time, the commission was handling a bribery case involving several former members of parliament.

They allegedly received bribes relating to the selection of Miranda Goeltom as Bank Indonesia (BI) senior deputy governor in 2004.

Thanks to KPK's ongoing efforts, Indonesia's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) improved from 2.0 in 2004 to 2.8 in 2009.

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