Soeharto still a suspect: Judge Lalu
JAKARTA (JP): South Jakarta District Court Chief Lalu Mariyun insisted that former president Soeharto is still a suspect in the multimillion-dollar graft case and that the case has not been closed.
"Soeharto is a suspect. Should prosecutors decide to register the case at the district court again, they are more than welcome," Lalu told reporters at his office on Tuesday.
He said the court had never issued a verdict dismissing the case for good, adding that the case was dropped due to the prosecutor's failure to present the defendant in court.
"What we judges have done, is like what a court does with police dossiers.
When the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office receives incomplete dossiers from the police, the office returns it back to the police for completion... and that's what we've been doing," Lalu said.
"We have not freed Soeharto from any charges. He's a suspect."
On Thursday last week, the court led by Judge Lalu dropped the graft charges against Soeharto after hearing medical arguments from an independent team of doctors that the 79-year-old man was mentally and physically unfit to stand trial.
"The court orders the case's registration number to be scratched from the court's criminal case registers," Lalu had said.
Soeharto, who left the presidency in May 1998 after 32 years in power, never appeared in any of the three court sessions due to his ill health.
He was accused of stealing US$571 million from the state by funneling money from seven charity foundations he chaired into the businesses belonging to his family and cronies.
Prosecutor Muchtar Arifin told the hearing he would appeal to the Jakarta High Court.
According to Lalu, the public had the mistaken impression that the dropping of charges by the court was primarily based on the results of the medical reports.
"That's not the point. Why was it that Soeharto could be (once) brought to Pertamina Hospital in South Jakarta for reexamination by the medical team, but failed to show up in court?
It's because of the prosecutors' failure (to bring Soeharto to court)," Lalu said.
"They should have taken some sort of action. They were waiting for judges to issue a court order to bring in the defendant by force ... isn't that against the law on human rights?"
On the striking of the case's registration number from the court's criminal case registers, Lalu said that it was "no big thing."
"The case has not been stopped in any way... whether tomorrow, a week or a month later, if prosecutors want to bring back the case into this court, the case will just get a new number."
On the Aug. 28 hearing, the judges objected to fulfilling prosecutor Muchtar's demand that they (the judges) should visit Soeharto's residence on Jl. Cendana to check Soeharto's health directly.
"Why should judges give priority to this defendant? He deserves no special treatment. The case should proceed in court, and not at the defendant's convenience and his residence," Lalu said.
On President Abdurrahman Wahid's allusion that the judges presiding over the case were "not clean," Lalu said that he was saddened by the President's remarks.
"The whole world is watching us... it would be just too stupid and too careless for us to receive a bribe. We know we did our best in handling this case," Lalu said.
Attorney General Marzuki Darusman confirmed last week that the South Jakarta Prosecutor's Office would appeal to the Jakarta High Court, saying that the district court's decision went against the justice expected by the people. (ylt)