NGO to sue prosecutor's office

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) plans to sue the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office for its plan to drop a corruption case allegedly involving a number of city councillors and city officials.

"We will sue the prosecutor's office because, although the money has been returned, this does not mean that the criminal case should be dropped," Fakta chairman Azas Tigor Nainggolan told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The head of the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office, Mulyohardjo, told the press on Thursday the case would be dropped because there were no criminal aspects to the case.

"There is no state loss and the money has been returned," he said.

In the case known as Ancolgate, several city officials and 16 councillors took part in a trip to South Africa, Japan and Australia in October 2000.

The trip was "double-financed" by city-owned developer PT Pembangunan Jaya Ancol and the city administration.

Besides receiving travel allowances of between US$5,000 and $10,000 from the developer, each person who went on the trip also received a Rp 52 million travel allowance from the city budget.

Besides their official visits to Tokyo, Cape Town and Sydney, they also stopped at Bangkok, Hong Kong and Seoul.

The prosecutor's office in 2001 named three councillors, who received the money but did not take part in the trip, as suspects in the case. They were Tarmidi Soehardjo and Tarmidi Edi Suwarno, both of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), and Ali Imran Husein of the United Development Party (PPP).

Sutiyoso sanctioned nine officials who took part in the trip, but did not punish two other senior officials.