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| The head of immigration at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport has been arrested over the suspected forgery of documents. (EPA Photo Mast Irham) |
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Police have
arrested the head of immigration at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on
suspicion of signing a bogus document to cover for another falsified document
in a convoluted legal wrangle involving a Singaporean national.
Sr. Comr.
Rikwanto, a Jakarta Police spokesman, said on Sunday that Rochadi Iman Santoso
had been detained since Friday.
“He was
arrested on charges that he made a document containing false information
regarding the traffic or trips made to and from Indonesia by a Singaporean
named Toh Ke Ng Siong,” he said.
In the
document, Siong was reported to have arrived at Soekarno-Hatta on a Tiger
Airways flight on Aug. 5, 2009, and to have left for Amsterdam aboard a KLM
flight a day later.
“The fact
is, Siong never came here, but there was
a letter [stating that he did] that was signed by R.I.S.,” Rikwanto said,
referring to Rochadi by his initials.
Rikwanto
said it was Siong’s lawyers, identified only as B., D. and P. from the law firm
Cakra & Co., who had asked Rochadi to sign the letter.
The
lawyers, who were representing Siong in a civil suit filed by an Indonesian
investment bank, Makindo, had been accused of faking a letter in which Siong
granted them power of attorney to act on his behalf.
Makindo
reported the lawyers to the police for document forgery, so the lawyers came up
with a scheme to make it appear as though Siong had arrived in the country to
sign the contract giving them power of attorney, Rikwanto said.
The police
spokesman added that after obtaining the bogus immigration document from
Rochadi, the lawyers presented it to the prosecutors who were handling the
document falsification charge against them.
But after
verifying with the Justice Ministry’s Directorate General of Immigration, Tiger
Airways and KLM, the prosecutors discovered the immigration document had been
falsified.
“The
Justice Ministry confirmed that Siong had never been registered by the
immigration office, nor did the airlines list him in their passenger manifests
for those dates,” Rikwanto said.
He added that
Rochadi would be charged with document forgery, which carries a maximum prison
sentence of six years. He also said Rochadi had claimed it was all a clerical
error.
“We want to
find out if money was involved,” Rikwanto said. “He told us there wasn’t and
said it was just a case of the wrong information being inputted and that the
official who made the error is currently studying in Australia.”
Adj. Sr.
Comr. Daniel Bolly Tifaona, the head of the Jakarta Police’s national security
unit, said the police would question the three lawyers, who are based in
Jakarta. He said the police had yet to talk to them because they traveled
overseas often.
Maryoto, a
spokesman for the Directorate General of Immigration, said he could not comment
on Rochadi’s arrest because he had not yet been officially notified.
“I’m still
trying to get information on it. I only heard about it in the media,” he said.
Siong is
not being questioned.
Additional reporting by Rizky Amelia
