‘Beef-gate’ Transfixes Scandal-Prone Indonesia

Indonesia has had no shortage of scandals in its decade-long fight against endemic corruption, mostly involving middle-aged politicians, suspicious bank accounts, handoffs of briefcases in hotel elevators, or boxes of cash in the trunk of a car in a dark parking garage.

Yet throw in political Islam, hotel room sex, luxury automobiles, swimsuit models and even imported beef, and you have the makings of an über-scandal that has transfixed the Indonesian public for weeks and provided endless fodder for television talk shows.

This week has been no different for the continuing scandal, dubbed Beef-gate. On Thursday, investigators from the independent Corruption Eradication Commission summoned the elderly chief patron of Indonesia’s leading Islamic-based political party, as well as a provincial governor, for questioning in connection with the case.

“I’m not sure what will be happening in the next week,” said Johan Budi, chief spokesman for the anti-corruption commission. “But I’m sure there will be something.”

And it could very well be salacious. The scandal began in January, when anti-corruption investigators raided a Jakarta hotel room and found a man named Ahmad Fathanah, a naked 19-year-old female student and a suitcase containing 1 billion rupiah, or $103,000.

Mr. Ahmad is a personal aide to Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, chairman of the Prosperous Justice Party, or P.K.S., which in the last national elections, in 2009, won the fourth-highest number of seats in the House of Representatives on a platform of personal morality and zero tolerance for corruption. Investigators allege that Mr. Ahmad received the money on behalf of his boss as a bribe from a local company to ensure that it received a larger share of a government-issued quota to import beef, which mostly comes from nearby Australia.

Mr. Luthfi immediately resigned, and was arrested and declared a graft suspect by the anti-corruption commission. Investigators have also questioned other senior P.K.S. leaders, including Agriculture Minister Suswono, whose ministry is in charge of allotting quotas to beef import companies, though he has not been charged.

Anis Matta, who replaced Mr. Luthfi as P.K.S. party chairman, was questioned at the anti-corruption commission’s offices Monday. On Thursday, investigators questioned Gatot Pujo Nugroho, governor of North Sumatra Province and a senior P.K.S. member, who witnesses said attended a meeting in January at a hotel in Medan, the provincial capital, with other party leaders including Mr. Luthfi and the head of Indonesiauna Utama, a local beef import company.

Investigators say the group discussed an additional quota for Indonesiauna Utama, which was awarded a contract to import several thousand tons of beef, in exchange for a kickback that was allegedly collected by Mr. Ahmad a few weeks later. Three executives from the company were also named suspects in the case, and two of them are on trial.

Investigators also summoned Hilmi Aminuddin, the chief patron of the P.K.S., for questioning on Tuesday and Thursday.

The Indonesian public is largely unfazed by corruption investigations and arrests, which occur on a nearly weekly basis. Although the country has made strides in combating endemic corruption dating from the authoritarian rule of the late President Suharto, who stepped down amid popular unrest in 1998, Transparency International ranked it 118 of 176 countries in its most recent corruption perception index.

Yet the beef import scandal has gained traction because of lurid details about the private life of Mr. Ahmad, who is married, and his connection to the P.K.S., which once campaigned for Indonesia to become an Islamic state and wanted to ban women from wearing short skirts and kissing in public. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country but has a secular Constitution and government.

Investigators said the young woman found in Mr. Ahmad’s hotel room in January told them that he had given her 10 million rupiah — about $1,000 — to meet with him. Two weeks ago, investigators said Mr. Ahmad had also given gifts of cash, cars and jewelry to two popular swimsuit and lingerie models, Khadijah Azhari and Vitalia Shesya. Both women returned the gifts and met with investigators, but are not considered suspects.

On Tuesday, M. Yusuf, chairman of the Financial Transactions Reports and Analysis Center, a state agency, told reporters that Mr. Ahmad had sent money to as many as 20 women in the past several years. The same day, The Jakarta Post quoted Mr. Ahmad’s driver as saying that his boss regularly had appointments with women around Jakarta.

Zuhairi Misrawi, a prominent Muslim intellectual and author, said the beef import scandal could cause a decline in political Islam in Indonesia, since Islamic-based parties that have criticized secular politics as immoral were already struggling to compete against them at the polls. The next national election is expected next year.

“This is a learning experience for the people,” he said. “We cannot again trust that Islamic political parties are the way to develop the country. They are using Islam as a way to be corrupt, rather than to develop the country.”

The P.K.S. has attempted to distance itself from Mr. Ahmad, with officials saying he never held a formal party position or was even a member.

A P.K.S. spokesman, Mandani Ali Sera, reportedly calling him a “criminal” and “a broker,” saying his activities had nothing to do with the party.

Anti-corruption officials continue to focus on the P.K.S. and its leaders, including Mr. Hilmi, Mr. Suswono and Mr. Luthfi, all of whom were implicated in the scandal Wednesday by a witness in the trial of the two Indonesiauna Utama executives.

That same day, investigators confiscated six cars from the P.K.S. headquarters in Jakarta that were believed to be owned by Mr. Luthfi and possibly purchased using proceeds from money laundering. Last week, P.K.S. officials refused to allow investigators to confiscate the vehicles, and on Tuesday they filed a defamation complaint against Mr. Budi, the anti-corruption commission spokesman, after he said they had obstructed investigators.

“P.K.S. has an opinion that the investigators from K.P.K. don’t have the warrants to take cars,” Mr. Budi said, referring to the commission by its initials. “That’s just their opinion.”