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JAKARTA: Indonesia’s anti-graft agency said on Thursday that its detention facilities have run out of space to hold corruption suspects, following a series of high-profile sting operations this year.

Graft is a longstanding problem in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, with Indonesia ranked 99 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.

The Corruption Eradication Commission has conducted at least five sting operations in 2025, including last week’s arrest of Deputy Manpower Minister Immanuel Ebenezer, making him the first member of President Prabowo Subianto’s cabinet to be arrested for graft.

“The ideal capacity for KPK’s detention center … is 51 people. Right now, we have 57 people in custody,” KPK spokesperson Budi Prasetyo said.

“Even though it is full now, it does not hinder the eradication of corruption that KPK is doing.”

Prabowo, who took office last October, has pledged to step up efforts to eradicate corruption, which he says drained government finances.

“(Indonesia has) extraordinary wealth, but there are too many thieves stealing money that belongs to the people. And for that, I am determined to put things in order,” he said during an event in Jakarta in June.

But the recent string of arrests is “not comparable to the number of alleged corruption cases” in Indonesia, said political analyst and anti-corruption activist Ray Rangkuti.

“We’re probably looking at one-tenth or even less than that, in terms of the actual number of corruption allegations that are widespread in Indonesia,” he told Arab News.

“Why didn’t KPK make a bigger detention center from the start? People know that here in Indonesia, anything is corruptible.”

Rangkuti viewed KPK’s recent arrests as “small fish,” highlighting Ebenezer’s case.

“They just arrested the deputy minister. But is it just him doing graft? There are 11 people arrested in connection to that case, but it’s a trivial one,” he said.

Anti-graft investigators said Ebenezer and other defendants benefited from illegal fees for the processing of safety permits needed by construction, mining or manufacturing employees to get work.

They are accused of charging 6 million rupiah, or $367.59, for the documents, far higher than the official rate of 250,000 rupiah, the proceeds of which were later distributed to ministry officials.

“My impression is that they are racing for quantity, not quality,” Rangkuti said. “So they’re sending a lot of people to jail, even though the cases are relatively small.”

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Thursday that it was still interested in pursuing peace talks on Ukraine despite a large and deadly Russian overnight strike on Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials said the attack had killed at least 15 people, including four children, in a strike on the Ukrainian capital that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was Moscow’s answer to diplomatic efforts to end its war.
Asked if there was a contradiction between Moscow’s stated desire to make progress in peace talks and the attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that both sides were continuing to attack each other but that Russia was still interested in achieving its goals via diplomacy.
Russian forces were continuing to target Ukrainian military and military-related infrastructure, he said. Peskov has repeatedly said that Russia does not deliberately target civilians.
He said Ukraine was continuing its own strikes against Russian infrastructure too, including against civilian infrastructure.
“The special military operation continues. You can see that strikes on Russian infrastructure, often on Russian civilian infrastructure, by the Kyiv regime are also continuing.
“The Russian armed forces are also carrying out their tasks. As stated, they continue to strike military and military-related infrastructure.
The strikes are successful, the targets are being destroyed, and the special military operation continues. At the same time, Russia remains interested in continuing the negotiation process in order to achieve our goals through political and diplomatic means.”