Padang, W Sumatra (ANTARA News) - A member of House Commission I on foreign affairs, Hidayat Nur Wahid, said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono needed to communicate with the Singapore prime minister for the repatriation of Indonesian corruption suspects from Singapore.

"One of the ways that should be pursued to repatriate corruption suspects who fled to Singapore is for the president to d communicate with the Singapore prime minister to discuss the matter," Hidayat Nur Wahid said here on Saturday.

He was speaking to ANTARA after attending a seminar on "Islam Talks About Radicalism" organized by the Indonesian Islamic Propagators Association (Ikadi).

Nur Wahid said that police and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) were now trying to get back corruptor suspects from Singapore. In this case they needed a high level diplomacy where the president should well communicate directly with the Singapore government.

This means, he said, more guts are needed to make a maximal effort to return suspected corruptors, and this effort is quite possible to do.

Besides that, according to Wahid, the state could take follow up steps to ratify the extradition agreement to send back corruptors.

He said that so far, ratification of extradition agreement was hampered because Singapore tried to connect it with the military cooperation agreement.(*)
(A014/HAJM/a014)

Editor: Ruslan Burhani
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