2nd LD Writethru: Indonesian deputy chairman of anti-corruption watchdog arrested

Indonesian police on Friday arrested a deputy chairman of the country's corruption eradication commission or KPK and said it has declared him suspect, according to police spokesman.

The arrest was just days after the KPK, who has been at the front line in combating seismic corruption in the country, declared the only police chief candidate suspect on a corruption case.

Bambang Widjojanto, deputy chairman of the KPK, was arrested at about 7:30 a.m. Jakarta time in Depok, an outskirt city of Jakarta, when he was accompanying his children to school, Ronny Sompie, spokesman of the national police said.

The spokesman said that Bambang was charged of asking witnesses to give fake testimonies about the disputes on the election at Central Kalimantan province in 2010 at the Constitutional Court.

"He (Bambang) is charged of committing of acts against law by asking witnesses to give fake testimonies," the spokesman said at the police headquarters.

Earlier this month, the KPK declared Commissioner General Budi Gunawan, as a suspect in a graft case days after President Joko Widodo nominated him as the only police chief candidate.

However, Gunawan still got approval from the parliament as police chief.

Gunawan is a former supporter of former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, the chairwoman of the largest Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which nominated Widodo as presidential candidate.

Legal Expert Zainal Arifin Mochtar told TV One in a live interview that he suspects that the police acts is not a purely effort to enforce law.

"I conclude that it may not an effort to enforce law, but against the law. The public could easily guest that," he said.

The KPK has sent numbers of officials to jail for corruption charges.

The Southeast Asia's largest economy is struggling to fight rampant corruption which has been one of the bottlenecks in establishing a favorable climate for investment. Endi