Jakarta – An Indonesian stringer for the US magazine Time on Friday answered a police summons in connection with a Time article which alleged the family of former Indonesian president Suharto was sitting on a 15-billion dollar fortune.

Zamira Loebis, an academic and Time stringer, appeared at the central Jakarta police station accompanied by Time's Indonesian lawyer, Todung Mulya Lubis, an AFP reporter there said.

Lawyers for the former head of state, currently hospitalized after suffering a mild stroke, filed a criminal complaint against Time last month over a story it published on May 24.

Suharto also filed a separate 27 billion dollar defamation suit against Time, charging it had damaged not only his name, but the name of the Indonesian nation.

But while police are following up the Suharto complaint, the Indonesian attorney general's office said Thursday it had suspended its own probe into Suharto's alleged fortune until he was "100 percent recovered." The probe would be dropped altogther if the 78-year-old former head of satte died, officials said.

Time in its May 24 edition said that of the 15 billion dollars allegedly held by the family, nine billion dollars had been removed from a Swiss bank and transfered to an Austrian bank.

The US weekly said the transfer had been made shortly after Suharto resigned in May last year amid massive rioting and calls for reform.