Colombia will deport an Indonesian citizen who is wanted for allegedly taking millions in bribes while working as a treasurer for Indonesia’s leading Democratic Party, Indonesian media reported Wednesday.
Muhammad Nazaruddin was arrested in Colombia’s coastal city Cartagena on Monday as he was on his way to watch a Under-20 World Cup soccer match in teh capital Bogota. On Tuesday, Colombian authorities said to wait with extraditing Nazaruddin until after speaking to Indonesia.
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa, told local press that the deal was reached after his office completed the legal paperwork to secure Nazaruddin’s deportation.
“The [nature of the deal] is deportation, not extradition,” the minister was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post. According to the newspaper, the minister stopped short of saying when Nazaruddin was scheduled to arrive in Indonesia.
According to the Indonesian Police, the disgraced Democratic Party’s former treasurer had used a false name on his passport but kept his own photograph on the document.
The 32-year-old had come to Colombia on a charter flight from Washington, according to Colombian police, who did not indicate his date of arrival.
Nazaruddin has been on the run since May, when anti-graft investigators linked him to a bribery scandal involving contracts on a $23 million athletes’ village for the Southeast Asian Games scheduled in November.