Court rejects pretrial lawsuit by Soeharto
Court rejects pretrial lawsuit by Soeharto
JAKARTA (JP): The South Jakarta District Court rejected on Friday a pretrial lawsuit filed by former president Soeharto against Attorney General Marzuki Darusman over the Attorney General's Office's decision to revoke an Oct. 11, 1999 decree.
Rusmandani Ahmad, the sole judge of the case, ruled that the plaintiff didn't have a right to file the lawsuit.
"As stipulated in Article 80 of the Criminal Code Procedure, the right to file such a lawsuit lies on the prosecutors, the investigators and third parties suffering losses from the issuance of the decree," said Rusmandani during a pretrial hearing at the district court.
"And the former president cannot be categorized as a third party affected by the case, but the suspect," he added.
The office's Oct. 11, 1999 decree has put an end to the investigation into Soeharto's alleged corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN) practices.
Scores of visitors attended the 45-minute hearing, which started since 9 a.m., including Soeharto's lawyers: Juan Felix Tampubolon, Indriyanto Seno Adji, Mohammad Assegaf and Denny Kailimang. Also present were lawyers for the Attorney General: Antasari Azhar, Barman Zahir and Y.W. Mere.
Rusmandani said while reading the verdict that the Oct. 11, 1999 decree was no longer in effect after the Attorney General issued another decree on Dec. 6, 1999.
"With the issuance of the Dec. 6, 1999 decree, the Oct. 11, 1999 decree was already legally in effect," he said.
Marzuki, who replaced acting Attorney General Ismudjoko on Nov. 26, 1999, ordered the office through the Dec. 6, 1999 decree to reopen the investigation into alleged corruption committed by the former president.
Rusmandani said there was no legal basis for a pretrial hearing to prosecute the procedures in determining Soeharto's arrest status.
"There is no law nor regulation which stipulates that a pretrial hearing will able to assess or question the procedures for establishing the former president's arrest status," he said.
Besides challenging the validity of the Oct. 11, 1999 decree, the lawsuit also demanded the court rule as unlawful the office's April 13, 2000 decree, which put Soeharto under city arrest, the May 29 decree, which converted the city arrest status into a house arrest status and the decree to prolong his arrest period.
Lawyer Juan expressed dissatisfaction over the verdict.
"We are considering seeking other legal steps to challenge the verdict," he said without elaborating.
The court's rejection occurred only three days after the Central Jakarta District Court threw out a defamation libel suit lodged by the former strongman against New York-based Time magazine over an article published last year which alleged Soeharto, who turned 79 last Thursday, had amassed a huge wealth during his 32-year reign. (asa)