Attorney General ready to rush Soeharto report

JAKARTA (JP): Acting Attorney General Ismudjoko said his office could not complete the investigation of former President Soeharto by Thursday's promised deadline, but said that if required a hastily compiled report could be presented to President B.J. Habibie.

"We haven't completed our investigation but if (Minister of Justice) Pak Muladi wants me to present a report at Thursday's Cabinet meeting, we can rush our report ... but not our investigation," Ismudjoko said at his office here on Friday.

Ismudjoko explained that what could be presented were the latest developments of the inquiry, and not a conclusion, as the investigation was still underway.

He added that Thursday's report would not touch upon the former president's legal status in the corruption case.

According to Ismudjoko, the government, after considering the reports from two separate investigations conducted by the Attorney General's Office and the Ministry for Development Supervision and State Administrative Reforms, would decide whether to continue or cease the investigation.

"The government will only make a statement on the fate of the investigation. Whether or not it will be continued or suspended.

"The legal status (of Soeharto) will only be determined in a courtroom," said Ismudjoko, who took over from suspended Attorney General Andi M. Ghalib in June.

Despite waves of public criticism, the government has failed to make progress on the alleged corruption of the 78-year-old former president during his three decades of power.

Minister of Justice Muladi said once again on Wednesday that the government would need another week to coordinate, combine and study the findings of the two separate investigations. He expected an announcement to be made during Thursday's Cabinet meeting.

When pressed by reporters on Friday, Ismudjoko refused to say whether the eight-month investigation had so far revealed any irregularities or offenses.

The probe into Soeharto was initiated in June last year and later reinforced by a decree of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) in November.

"Based on the Assembly's decree, we're not allowed to publicize our findings as we have to present them to the President," Ismudjoko contended.

Ismudjoko was speaking to reporters after a meeting with a group of lawyers from the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) who urged the acting attorney general not to falter in his investigation.

"We want to make sure that Soeharto's alleged corruption will proceed to a trial," spokesman for the lawyers Iskandar Sonadji said.

"We are getting the impression that it isn't going anywhere other than checking Soeharto's presidential decrees and foundations and that was only done as a response to public pressure."

In a related development, lawyers from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), Solidarity for Indonesian Farmers (STI) and the Ampera Legal Aid Foundation, grouped in Tapos, said they had registered a case at the Central Jakarta District Court to support Time magazine, which is being sued for libel by Soeharto.

"This lawsuit is filed with Time's case as we can support them as the correct side. We have enough evidence to support them that Soeharto, his family and cronies were greedy in amassing illegal wealth, including illegally claiming people's land in several areas in West Java," Tapos spokesman Johnson Panjaitan told a press conference here.

The lawyers represented ten farmers from Cibeduk village in Bogor, West Java, whose properties were seized several years ago by people supposedly acting on behalf of Soeharto.

The United States-based magazine reported in May that the former president and his children amassed a US15$ billion fortune during his rule.

"If Time can win this case, we will likely prepare other lawsuits on behalf of other farmers in other areas," Johnson said. (emf)