Probe on Soeharto to be announced soon

Probe on Soeharto to be announced soon

JAKARTA (JP): President B.J. Habibie is to announce on
Thursday his decision regarding the sluggish investigation into
former president Soeharto's alleged corruption, State
Secretary/Minister of Justice Muladi revealed on Monday.

"There will be a final decision on Thursday," Muladi
announced.

Muladi revealed on Monday, eight months since the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) instructed Habibie to investigate
allegations of corruption leveled at the former president, that a
team was making an analysis of the investigation and preparing
recommendations.

The team, whose members come from the offices of coordinating
minister for development supervision and administrative reforms
and the attorney general, will present their analysis to a team
of experts. Afterward, they will submit the analysis and
recommendations to the President.

"The President will then issue a decree on the matter. I think
the decree will be issued later this month," Muladi said as
quoted by Antara.

On Aug. 18, Muladi hinted that the investigation into Soeharto
may be dropped due to a lack of evidence. The remarks came
several days after Soeharto was rushed to Pertamina Hospital with
intestinal bleeding, less than a month after hospitalization for
a mild stroke.

The government has been under mounting pressure to speed up
the probe by naming Soeharto a suspect of corruption during his
32 years of iron-fisted rule. Observers, however, have speculated
that Habibie, who is Soeharto's former protege, would be
reluctant to take a firm stance against the ailing former ruler.

In his recent state of the nation address, Habibie said that
in eradicating corruption, the government could not rush the
process if evidence for a trial was incomplete and unconvincing.

Amid growing speculation on the fate of the investigation into
Soeharto, local media reported that acting Attorney General
Ismudjoko would be soon be replaced by leading lawyer Adnan
Buyung Nasution. Ismudjoko was installed mid-June, replacing Lt.
Gen. Andi M. Ghalib who at the time faced widespread condemnation
for alleged bribe taking.

Muladi, however, denied the speculation about a new attorney
general. "I have never been asked (by the President) to draft a
concept for (Ismudjoko's) replacement," he said.

Spokesman for the Attorney General's Office Soehandoyo said he
had not been informed of any plan to replace his boss from the
State Secretariat.

"Up until this second, we have yet to hear or receive
notification ... the media news about it is baseless," he said.

Political observer Hermawan Sulistyo said recently, quoting
unidentified sources, that Adnan would soon replace Ismudjoko and
would help calm the public uproar over the Bank Bali interbank
debt scandal in which Habibie and senior officials have been
implicated.

Soehandoyo said Ismudjoko would retire next May or June, and
not in September as some media have reported.

Separately, Adnan Buyung Nasution told a private television
station that he met Habibie late Friday, but there was no
conversation about an impending assignment for him.

"He (Habibie) did not say anything about it. Maybe (the
speculation) was engineered (to fish for) confusing
comments...," Adnan said.

When pressed further, he conceded he would be willing to be
the new attorney general under several conditions, which he did
not name.

Meanwhile, a sociology expert from Hasanudin University in
Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, said he suspected that if Adnan was
appointed attorney general, it would be merely a ploy to counter
the heated public debates about the Bank Bali scandal.

Achmad Ali pointed out that Adnan was "a government man" who
was close to Habibie. That proximity, he said, could erode
Adnan's independence.

Achmad said that if Ismudjoko was to retire, he should be
replaced instead by former secretary-general of the National
Commission on Human Rights, Baharuddin Lopa.

"Lopa is known to be a highly capable man with integrity," he
said. (emf/27)