Minister: Solution Needed To Solve Internationally Linked Corruption

Yogyakarta, Sept 11 (ANTARA) - Indonesian chief minister for legal, political and security affairs Djoko Suyanto said efforts must be made to find a way to settle corruption cases affecting other countries. "A corruption case may happen in our country but the persons involved and their assets may also move to other countries and so efforts must be made to find a solution to overcome the problem without harming the laws in the countries concerned," he said after opening the 8th Southeast Asia Parties Against Corruption (SEAPAC) here on Tuesday. SEAPAC is a forum of anti-corruption institutions from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam that regularly meets every year to study activities in member countries in the field of corruption eradication. "There has indeed been a Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) or extradition scheme but it could only happen if there is commitment and understanding between the countries asking or being asked for it and under different legal systems the scheme would even be more difficult to realize," he said. He said difficulties often emerged in the implementation of the MLA because of the differences in the legal system and categorization of crimes of the countries concerned. In view of that Djoko said the SEAPAC forum must be able to overcome the bureaucratic complexities in the implementation of the MLA. Djoko said "we must take political and security risks because they do not compare with the destruction caused by corruption on people`s morality, economy and development." Indonesia`s anti-graft agency chief Abraham Samad meanwhile said besides enforcement SEAPAC has also intensively cooperated in prevention. "Several SEAPAC partners have visited KPK (the Indonesian anti-graft agency) to conduct a comparative study on media handling, verification of state officials` wealth, reporting system and human resource management," he said. The meeting at Sheraton Mustika Hotel is scheduled to last until September 13, preceded by an international workshop on "International Cooperation and Mutual Legal Assistance" on September 10 at the same location.