Doctors playing politics: Gus Dur

Doctors playing politics: Gus Dur

JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid in another seeming
outburst suggested that the independent medical team who declared
former president Soeharto physically and mentally unfit to stand
trial was "playing politics".

"I have two personal doctors in my entourage and they said
that Pak Harto is fit to undergo trial," Antara quoted
Abdurrahman as saying in a dialog with the Indonesian community
in Ottawa, Canada, on Monday afternoon.

"So how can two teams of doctors be different," he said

"It is difficult if doctors also play politics," he added.

The South Jakarta district court decided last week to drop all
charges against Soeharto after an independent medical team of 24
doctors declared that the former president was physically and
mentally too ill to stand trial.

The President had expressed his dissatisfaction with the court
ruling last week saying that the government would seek to replace
the judges presiding over the case.

Abdurrahman, who is on a 10-day trip to four South American
countries and Canada, at the time implied that the judges were
not clean and that the government would look for replacements who
were "clean, firm and cannot be bought".

In Canada, the President denied, however, that he was
dissatisfied with the judges' decision to dismiss the Soeharto
case.

"I am not upset. It is the people who are upset with the
decision. They are upset because they consider that Soeharto is
guilty but has been declared free," Abdurrahman was quoted as
saying.

The decision to drop all charges against Soeharto was
immediately met with widespread public criticism and triggered
violent student protests on Jakarta streets last week. (byg)