'Halt the case against Sjahril'

JAKARTA (JP): A lawyer representing suspended Bank Indonesia governor Sjahril Sabirin in the Bank Bali scandal said on Friday that prosecution should be halted since other defendants in the case had been declared not guilty by a district court.

Mohamad Assegaf said the team of lawyers had sent a letter to Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, demanding that Sjahril be dismissed as he was not guilty and the charges were of a political nature.

"We sent the request after our first letter, which was sent on Oct. 19, was apparently ignored by the attorney general. We asked for his attention in stopping the prosecution," he told The Jakarta Post by phone on Friday afternoon.

Assegaf argued that based on the South Jakarta District Court verdicts, which acquitted businessman Djoko Tjandra and former deputy chairman of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) Pande Lubis, the prosecutors had no strong legal grounds to prosecute Sjahril.

"Sjahril, as the central bank governor, only endorsed what was ordered by IBRA: to reimburse funds to Bank Bali for defaulted loans. If the case is taken to court, it's only for political reasons. I remind the attorney general of its impact on our monetary value if he insists on prosecution," Assegaf said.

Sjahril, who is under house arrest, has been charged with violating the central bank's prudential policy in reimbursing the funds without conducting any clarification.

The scandal revolves around the reimbursement of Rp 904 billion in defaulted loans to other banks. Some Rp 546 billion of the money was then paid to Djoko's PT Era Giat Prima as a commission for helping Bank Bali recoup the money.

The lawyers tried to release their client from detention and filed a pretrial lawsuit for arbitrary arrest with the South Jakarta District Court.

However, Marzuki denied that he received the demands from the lawyers.

"I never received nor read them. The deputy attorney general for special crimes probably got them. But if he did, he surely would have let me know," he told the Post. (bby)