BANGKOK (TrustLaw) – Former treasurer of the ruling Democrat Party Muhammad Nazaruddin, on the run since May under a cloud of graft allegations, was arrested in Colombia early Sunday, the Jakarta Post reported.
Officials said Interpol and local police in northern Colombia’s seaport city of Cartagena apprehended Nazaruddin, who had fled Indonesia a day before being imposed with a travel ban, as he was attempted to leave the country.
“He was using a fake passport with the name Safarudin,” the Post quoted National Police spokesman Inspector General Anton Bachrul Alam as saying. Nazaruddin’s wife and other people, believed to be his bodyguards, were with him when he was caught, Anton added.
Nazaruddin was removed from his post in May over allegations of graft in the building of a complex for athletes at the Southeast Asian Games to be held in Indonesia later this year.
He was previously reported to have been in Singapore, before Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named him a suspect.
The KPK has summoned him four times over probes in two corruption cases – the SEA Games and the procurement of projects commissioned by the National Education Ministry in 2007.
While on the run, Nazaruddin was reported to have accused other Democratic Party politicians, including chairman Anas Urbaningrum, of involvement in corruption cases linked to government projects.
According to The Jakarta Globe, after Singapore, Narauddin went to Vietnam and Cambodia and then chartered a private jet to Bogota via Madrid and the Dominican Republic.
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
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