JAKARTA: A legislative team assigned to examine the flow of

JAKARTA: A legislative team assigned to examine the flow of
Presidential Aid (Banpres) funds will soon convene to make final
recommendations to the House of Representatives.

Team leader R.K. Sembiring Meliala confirmed on Wednesday the
team had concluded that State Secretary Bambang Kesowo had not
committed any violations in dispensing the aid.

"The fund is now under the responsibility of the Ministry of
Finance," Sembiring of the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) faction added.

The team held a series of meetings and questioned several
former state secretaries, including Muladi, Ali Rachman and
Bambang Kesowo, in its investigation.

The team was set up after President Megawati Soekarnoputri
donated Rp 30 billion for the renovation of military and police
barracks. The money came from the Banpres.

Legislators had accused the President of misusing the Banpres,
but withdrew their allegations after hearing from the state
secretaries. -- JP

N. Korea's Kim Yong Nam to visit RI

JAKARTA: North Korea's ceremonial head of state will visit
Indonesia next week for talks with President Megawati
Soekarnoputri, a palace official said on Wednesday.

Kim Yong Nam, speaker of the North Korean Supreme People's
Assembly, will arrive in Jakarta on July 10 for a three-day
visit, said presidential staffer Garibaldi Sudjatmiko.

Kim Yong Nam will be the communist state's highest-ranking
leader to visit Indonesia since the early 1960s.

In March, Megawati met North Korean President Kim Jong Ill in
Pyongyang. She brought the North Korean leader a message from
South Korean President Kim Dae Jung urging the communist North to
revive dialog with Seoul.

Inter-Korean relations, which had improved in 2000, were hurt
by tension between the United States and North Korea that arose
after U.S. President George W. Bush labeled North Korea part of
an "axis of evil". -- AP

Rights trial defendant withdraws testimony

JAKARTA: A senior Indonesian policeman accused of human rights
violations in East Timor on Wednesday told a human rights trial
that previous statements he had made to investigators were false.

Former Suai Police precinct chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Gatot
Subiaktoro, one of a number of military or police officers facing
charges, withdrew statements linking the Suai Military District
Command to marauding pro-Jakarta militia.

"I could not think (straight at the time of making the
statement) ... I was in shock for being named a suspect for
crimes against humanity," he told the Central Jakarta human
rights ad hoc court investigating the 1999 East Timor violence.

"The statement in the dossiers was not true, your honor," he
told the hearing presided over by Judge Cicut Sutiarso.

The dossiers quote him as saying that the police could not
probe the attack by the pro-Jakarta Laksaur militia on
proindependence supporters taking refuge in the St. Ave Maria
Church in Suai town on Sept. 6, 1999, because of an emotional
relationship between Laksaur and the military command.

Twenty-seven civilians, including three Catholic priests, were
killed in the attack.

The dossiers also recorded his conversation with the late
Olivio Moruk, the Laksaur leader, which justified the existence
of the armed militia.

Gatot, who testified that he did not have enough power to
prevent the attack, claimed that he had never said that he
endorsed the presence of the armed group. --JP