The former treasurer of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s party, on the run over graft allegations, arrived back in the country Saturday after being extradited from Colombia, police said.
Mohammed Nazaruddin, 32, fled Indonesia in May when anti-corruption investigators linked him to a bribery scandal involving the construction of the athletes’ village for the Southeast Asian Games, scheduled in November.
He was arrested by Colombian police in Cartagena on Monday after Interpol issued a “red notice” for him, officials said.
“He is now being detained in a police detention centre,” said Indonesia’s national police spokesman I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana, adding that he was returned on a specially-chartered flight and anti-graft investigators were questioning him.
The scandal has the potential to entangle other senior members of the president’s party.
In a recent nationally-televised interview from an unknown location, Nazaruddin made graft allegations against several high-ranking officials from the Democratic Party including its chairman Anas Urbaningrum and Andi Mallarangeng, the sports minister.
Yudhoyono condemned the spreading of allegations against his party’s officials on Friday, saying that “Nazarrudin’s return to the country will make everything clearer.”
The normally taciturn leader has won two elections on promises to tackle corruption in one of the most corrupt countries in Asia, but his critics say he has failed to make any genuine difference to the culture of graft and impunity.