Coconuts Jakarta Jan. 19, 2018
The situation keeps looking worse and worse for Fredrich Yunadi, the former lawyer for former house speaker Setya Novanto.
Since dropping the once “invincible” senior politician as a client, shortly after Novanto was named a suspect by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for his involvement in the massive e-KTP graft case, Fredrich was named a suspect for obstructing justice and arrested by the KPK as well.
Since his arrest, Fredrich has been trying to defend himself, calling on his fellow lawyers to support him (none did) and lashing out at the KPK’s charge that he staged Novanto’s highly suspicious car crash in November.
Yesterday, Fredrich reportedly challenged the KPK to question National Police Chief Tito Karnavian in relation to his case. His reason? A police investigation into the crash itself concluded that it had not been faked or engineered.
Fredrich reasoned that the KPK had to talk to Tito regarding that investigation if they were going to keep harassing him with claims that the accident had been faked.
Upon hearing that Fredrich wanted Tito to be questioned about his case, the head of public relations at the National Police, M. Iqbal, responded by saying the lawyer’s statement, at first, just made him smile.
He then explained that while police had determined that the car crash itself was real from a technical standpoint, that did not rule out the possibility that the it had been done for real as part of a larger conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Iqbal also said that Tito, as head of the national police, would not be the one to question about a particular investigation like that as he had bigger matters to deal with.
“At most (they might question) the head of the investigation unit. His statement was funny too, we just laughed at how funny it sounded,” Iqbal said as quoted by BeritaSatu.
Fredrich was named an obstruction of justice suspect by the KPK last week, with investigators saying they had strong evidence the lawyer had reserved VIP rooms at the at Permata Hijau hospital for Setya before the accident had occurred on November 16.
Investigators also named a doctor at the hospital a suspect for allegedly manipulating Novanto’s medical records to justify keeping him out of the hands of the authorities.
Now sitting behind bars while undergoing trial, Novanto last week said he wanted to become a “justice collaborator” (i.e. witness for the prosecution).
He reiterated that offer on Wednesday through his lawyers, with one of his conditions for cooperation being that his family (who have also been questioned by the KPK in regards to the case) be left alone.
siK.
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za 20 jan 2018 - 5:36