Attorney General under fire for bad performance

Attorney General under fire for bad performance

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives slammed the Attorney General's
Office for its slow action in handling big-time corruption cases,
including the cases involving the government liquidity support
(BLBI) that cost the state billions of U.S. dollars.

Legislators of the House's Commission II on home and legal
affairs charged that the office had taken way too much time to
complete investigations and that it had failed to show a
consistent policy on treating the alleged corruption criminals
with the various sentencing demands proposed to the courts.

J.E. Sahetapy, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), questioned why Samadikun
Hartono, president commissioner of now defunct Bank Modern, got a
mere one-year prison sentence for embezzling Rp 169 billion
(US$18.7 million) at the height of the economic crisis when
millions of people were starving here. He also asked a similar
question about Bank Servitia's David Nusa Wijaya -- currently in
hiding -- who swindled Rp 1.27 trillion.

Patrialis Akbar of the National Mandate Party (PAN) demanded
that Attorney General M.A. Rachman explain why the state
prosecutors failed to handle the high-profile cases as tough as
they did with small-scale cases.

"The BLBI cases involved trillions of rupiah in losses to the
state. But how come your subordinates pay more attention to small
cases, such as a domestic disputes?!" Patrialis asked in an
apparently angry tone.

Rachman did not reply as Commission Chairman Teras Narang and
Deputy Chairman Ferry Mursyidan Baldan immediately stepped in and
insisted on terminating the hearing which had already taken over
two hours of their time.

Julius Usman, also of PDI-Perjuangan, implied that Rachman's
woeful performance was deliberate and aimed at slowly ruining
President Megawati Soekarnoputri's administration due to the
public's growing doubts about her stance against corruption.

"Nothing good comes from the Attorney General's Office so
far... There is no answer for all the legal problems we now
have," Julius added.

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) found that 95 percent, or some
Rp 138.4 trillion, of the emergency loans extended to 48
commercial banks had either been misused or were disbursed in
violation of banking regulations.

Rachman said that since the investigation started in August
2000, investigators had revealed another four additional
corruption cases from the 48 cases found by BPK.

Twelve of the total 52 cases had been brought to trial, while
the others are still apparently under investigation.

Two of those cases ended in a not guilty verdict for the
bankers, while the investigation into the commissioner of Bank
Dagang Indonesia (BDI), Sukamdani Gito Sardjono, has been dropped
altogether due to what they suddenly claimed was an absence of
evidence that he had embezzled from personal accounts during the
massive bank runs.

The hearing concluded with the apparently angry legislators
giving the green light for a 77 percent raise for the Attorney
General's Office annual budget for 2003 which will bring the
total to Rp 177 billion.

The legislators also urged the office to improve their
performance, including the handling of human rights cases.

"For an intensive supervision into the prosecutors' policies,
we agreed to set up a consultative forum which will be held on a
regular basis," Teras Narang said.