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)