Last night I phoned Wayan Sukarta, timing for the beginning of the day shift, eight
o’clock in the morning Bali time, at the Poltabes number noted on the
police summons.
My first call rang unanswered. A few minutes later I tried again, and someone picked
up on the ninth ring and grunted “Yeah?” Clearly the investigators at Poltabes don’t
like to give anything away.
From the noises in the background I guessed that the office staff were just settling
into their desks and sipping their first coffees.
I said I would like to speak to Wayan Sukarta.
Whoever was on the other end replied “who’s calling?”
“Are you Wayan Sukarta?” I asked
“Who is this?”
“I am someone calling to speak to Wayan Sukarta.”
“Who are you?”
“Why don’t you find Wayan Sukarta, and then I will tell Wayan who I am.”
I wasn’t trying to be obstinate. I have had enough experiences by now, not only
with Made Jati, Ida Bagus Wikantara, and Jean Lane but also with police investigators
and prosecutors and immigration officials who refuse to talk to me. When they hear
my name they hang up the phone and instruct their staff to say they are out if I
call back.
So I at least wanted to confirm I actually had Wayan Sukarta on the line before
I gave my name. And eventually, after about three minutes of jousting, and after
I hung up and called again, we made a breakthrough in communications: Wayan admitted
that it was indeed himself on the line, and I identified myself.
Now despite my suspicions about a police mafia in Bali, I don’t necessarily suspect
Wayan of being involved – not knowingly, anyway. I’ve met him several times. When
he started handling Made Jati’s complaints in 2006 – and the current “unpleasantness”
complaint is actually a complaint Made originally filed in April 2007 – I arranged
to meet Wayan privately so we could check each other out before I considered answering
a police summons at Poltabes.
I expect Wayan also felt nothing lost by a first private meeting. Police are always
investigating anyway, no matter what they may say about a “private conversation.”
With the police there is really no such thing as private. Unless you are bribing
them, I suppose.
But I was curious then, in 2006, whether Wayan was one of Made’s minions, or whether
he really thought he was doing a police job.
We met at the Sektor Restaurant in Sanur. Wayan turned out to be a good-looking
and earnest young man in his twenties, and Made Jati’s complaint was his first case
on his own as an investigator. I made an immediate assumption: someone at Poltabes
had assigned the Made Jati case to the green kid who wouldn’t recognize what he
had been thrown into and could be relied on to take instructions from superiors
without too many questions asked.
We talked at Sektor for a couple of hours, but I never did go to Poltabes in 2006.
I will make another assumption: whoever was in charge didn’t really want me at Poltabes
anyway, because the report on Section 335 would be almost impossible to prove, and
my testimony to the police would be likely to incriminate Made Jati, and the entire
point of the investigation was to scare me out of Bali.
Of course, Wayan didn’t know this. He was just doing his job. But for some reason
his office didn’t issue a summons for the next few months. And then in August 2007
I received the death threat, which proved more efficient at driving me out of Bali
than a criminal accusation on Section 335.
So I didn’t have any personal enmity with Wayan Sukarta. But he didn’t want to talk
on the phone.
“Just come in to Poltabes,” he said.
“I am in California, Wayan. I’m not going to do that. But there is something I need
to tell you. According to California law, I need to inform you that I am recording
this conversation.”
“What? Why?” He was startled.
“California law. I need to inform you. Who knows where this case might go, when
it might be useful? Sometimes one case leads to another, right?”
“Just come to Poltabes,” he hedged.
“No, let’s just talk now, okay, Wayan?”
He didn’t answer.
“Look,” I said, “we can help each other out here. You want to handle this case,
and there are things I want to handle, too. You get information you need and I get
information I need. No harm done, right?”
“No, you need to come here,” he said.
“Are you refusing to talk to me, Wayan? Remember, you are the police, I am the suspect
here. This is very strange if the police refuse to talk to the suspect. Don’t you
think that looks strange?”
“Yeah…”
“So let’s talk, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“So tell me. This case is over four years old. Why after all this time did you just
two weeks ago issue a summons for me and send it to my house in Sanur? Who told
you to do that?”
He hummed around, explained that he was the investigator, investigators always send
summons but they couldn’t do it before because I wasn’t in Bali.
“But I’m not in Bali now, Wayan. Who told you I would come to Bali and told you
to send the summons?”
“Um… we always do that.”
“No, Wayan. Why now? Who told you I would be in Bali?”
“The complainant.”
“The complainant. You mean Made Jati?”
“Yeah, Made Jati.”
I knew she had. I just wanted to hear Wayan confirm it. In the California Court
hearing on 1 July I had told the court that I would be in Indonesia at the beginning
of August. Made’s attorney would have told her. And she told Wayan, but not for
the beginning of August when I said I would be there, but for a week earlier, the
26th of July.
There had been one police summons issued in August 2007. This summons was the second.
Failure to answer two summonses allows the police to issue a third summons and place
me under immediate arrest. She still refused to meet with me, but she was prepared
for my arrival.
I wouldn’t have gone to Bali anyway, and then I decided to cancel the trip entirely
as too risky. But either way, Made was covered; she would scare me away from Bali,
or she could have me arrested if I did show up.
“Tell me about this Section 335 of the Criminal Code, Wayan,” I asked.
He began to explain, reciting from the statute, but I broke in.
“Is this the same Section 335 that I read about in the newspaper the other day?”
and I quoted to him from an article from
the Tribune in Jakarta ”Attorney General Hendarman Supandji dismissed the use of
two sections of the law code resorted to by former Minister of Justice and Human
Rights Yusril Mahendra … as ‘garbage law.’ Said Hendarman ‘… I must say, this is
a ‘grumbling’ section, a garbage section. If you are desperate and can't think of
anything else, give it Section 335.”
“So is that what you are investigating, Wayan? What the Attorney General calls garbage
law?”
“He,he… yeah. Well, it’s still a law on the books, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Usually used to shut up little people who complain, right? Like the
Prita case? Or Khoe Seng
Seng?”
“Maybe. But it’s still a law. It’s been reported so I have to investigate it.”
“So let’s start at the basics, then. This ‘unpleasantness,’ if whatever is said
is true, is it still a crime?”
“No, not if it’s true. No crime then.”
“So what does Made Jati allege the crime to be?”
“Because of the Uluwatu website. You said…” and here he read to me in English the
statement from the website in 2005 “Uluwatu may soon be in difficulties, but the
management and creative staff has moved to a new company Kayun…”
I could tell from his reading that he probably didn’t understand the meaning.
“Do you have a good translation of that, Wayan? Into Indonesian? Let me tell you
what that says. ‘Maybe’ in trouble. I didn’t say Uluwatu was in trouble, only a
possibility in the future. And the creative and management staff that moved to Kayun
was me. Nothing untrue there, is there?”
“No, maybe not. But she also doesn’t like you telling all your family things on
the internet.”
“Well you know what? Too bad. I don’t like it either. I don't like what she did
to our family. I'm sure she doesn't like people finding out about it. And I don’t
like her making this complaint. But putting this on a website, which by the way
I own and is based in California, is not against the law.”
“No,” he said.
“And have you looked into who owns Uluwatu?”
“Bu Made says she does.”
“The Supreme Court doesn’t agree with her. According to Indonesian law and the Supreme
Court, Made Jati and I own Uluwatu together. It is a family asset, husband and wife.”
Wayan was silent for a while, then said “I will have to study this.”
“What do you really know about Made Jati?” I asked. “Do you know about the double
identity in Tabanan? The Supreme Court decision that she acquired marriage documents
contrary to law? The California Court decision that she abandoned her children?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“I've reported six cases all throughout Bali and all six have been dropped without
reason or without investigation. The only case still active is this case you're
handling at Poltabes. Why are you so hard working, Wayan?”
“I just have to do my job.”
“You don’t know anything about the dropped police cases? When was the last time
you looked at the Uluwatu website?”
“A long time. 2007, I guess.”
“What do you know about a Law Mafia behind all this?”
“I don’t know anything.”
I believed him.
“Well, when we hang up here today, I would like you to check the website again.
But I am going to tell you now what it says…”
And I did. For the next fifty minutes.
I like Wayan. I think he is sincere and trying to do the right thing. But then I
am a notoriously poor judge of character and I don’t entirely trust my instincts
anymore. After all, I married Made Jati. But I still like Wayan.
“Remember a few years ago when you were mixed up in that
Kori embezzlement report from Made Jati about Gary Hewson?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I called your boss, Pak Gede Alit Widana. I think I may have got his handphone
number from you, remember? I talked to him several times and gave him all this information.
And I told him then that I didn’t want anything from him. I wasn’t asking for an
investigation. But I wanted him to know what was going on because I didn’t think
he knew. Someone at Poltabes was behind some bad business, and all I wanted him
to do was look into it and stop it so that something unfortunate didn’t happened
at Poltabes. Did he ever talk to you?”
“No, he never talked to me!” Wayan sounded startled. But I knew the chief of police
would never have talked to someone on Wayan’s level anyway. He would have dealt
with whoever was behind this on the upper levels.
“And then Pak Gede is suddenly transferred to Sulawesi, and a couple of months later
all this starts up again.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“I know. But I am telling you all this now for the same reason I told Pak Gede.
So you don’t get stuck in the middle of someone else’s problem. Because you could
end up looking like the bad guy. And because this isn’t going to end. I was once
in Bali where people could get to me. I was chased away with a death threat. Now
I am in L.A., harder to get to. I’ve reported to the FBI. And I’m not coming back
to Bali without protection. Because you know what could happen if I do come to Bali,
right Wayan?”
“Yeah, I know…”
I could be arrested, and put in a cell, and in the morning it would be reported
that the bule had committed suicide in the night. Stabbed himself in the
back fifteen times, something like that.”
Wayan laughed a little.
“Is that something that could happen, Wayan? “
“Yeah, that could happen, Pak.”
“But what we can do is this. If you want to continue this investigation, I will
help you. I will give you testimony, but not in Bali. According to the Procedure
Code, you as the investigator can interview the Complainant and the Suspect at the
same time, I forgot the term…”
“Konfrontir.”
“Yeah, konfrontir.” From the English. “You summon Made Jati, and I will join
in on a conference video call from California. I can even do it from the Indonesia
Consulate in Los Angeles so more official. And we konfrontir and get this
over with. Agree?”
“Agree, Pak.”