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)