Civil Claim Not Targeting Soeharto
Friday, 30 June, 2006 | 14:07 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has finished the concept of a draft to sue one of Soeharto's foundations. “We're finished with the concept of the draft of the civil claim, so what’s left is to improve it,” Alex Satobya, the Deputy Attorney General for Civil and State Administration (Jamdatun), told the press in his office, at Jakarta yesterday.

However, the civil claim will not be aimed at Soeharto . “There are some (people who will be under suspicion ) who I can't precisely recall, but it's not a person (Soeharto),” Alex said. The Amal Bhakti Foundation case is one of 57 files being investigated by a team which consists of the Jamdatun and the Deputy Attorney General for Special Criminal Action (Jampidsus).

The civil claim is an alternative taken by the AGO after they stopped the Soeharto court action by virtue of the former President's bad health. The handling of the civil case, Alex conceded, will be more difficult. “Since the document (as the evidence) can't be photocopied, it must be authentic,” said Alex.

The AGO hopes that the completed draft for a foundation case will ease the composing of the other draft claim. “Usually, if one or two drafts have been finished, the others will follow,” said Alex.

In addition to collecting documents of seven of Soeharto's foundations, the teams of the Jampidsus and the Jamdatun are also collecting such other documents as the National Car, Kiani Kertas and Bank Duta cases.

The cases are dealing with document and evidence collecting as well as investigating potential assets in response to State losses. The 57 documents are not entirely collected. “There are piles of them. The files are this high,” said Alex as he stretched his arms around 40 centimeters to show the many files concerning the Soeharto case.

After the document collecting is finished, the team will expose these cases. After that they will ask for a power of attorney from the President. “However, it will still take a long time. Obviously, (they) can't be in a hurry,” said Alex.

However, Juan Felix Tampubolon, Soeharto's lawyer, said the civil claim will not be of any use. “Proposing the claim becomes a civil claim is useless, wasting energy, because things that have been done by the foundations were formally legal,” Felix told Tempo via telephone yesterday.

Logically, according to Tampubolon, if the case can be shifted over into a civil case, it should have been done long before. Tampubolon sees this matter as a political act. “Because, it's legally impossible,” he said.

Tampubolon has also observe that, logically, the AGO step in suing Soeharto's foundations is thought of as something strange . “Since the foundations are administratively managed by the government, how could the government sue a foundation (which carries out the government's program)?” said Felix.

Fanny