Jakarta – Indonesia's caretaker attorney-general has vowed to carry on the work of the country's top corruption fighter, who died from a heart-related illness in a Saudi Arabian hospital, local media reported on Wednesday.
The death of the uncompromising and widely respected Attorney-General Baharudin Lopa has dealt a major blow to President Abdurrahman Wahid's stumbling efforts to root out endemic graft that has made the country a byword for corruption.
In office only a month, Lopa had also launched investigations into two leading critics of the embattled Wahid but brushed aside suggestions they were politically motivated.
"When I was appointed acting attorney general, the president told me to continue what had been done and was to be done by Mr Lopa. My mission is to continue [this]," deputy attorney general Suparman was quoted by the leading Kompas daily as saying.
It was unclear if Suparman, who was appointed caretaker attorney-general on Tuesday, would formally take over the job.
All newspapers carried reports on Wednesday mourning the loss of the 66-year-old Lopa, saying he was one of the few officials feared by corrupt businessmen and politicians in Indonesia. Lopa, a former senior member of Indonesia's human rights commission and briefly justice minister before becoming attorney general, was visiting Saudi Arabia when he fell ill.
Officials were not available to confirm that investigations Lopa launched into parliament speaker Akbar Tandjung and parliament faction leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), Arifin Panigoro, would continue.
Both have been key figures pushing for an impeachment hearing in the supreme People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) against Wahid over the president's own links to two graft scandals and a chaotic 20-month rule. That session opens on August 1, although Wahid has strenuously denied any wrongdoing. Tandjung is head of the former ruling Golkar Party, the country's second largest. He has been linked to a graft case involving the alleged misuse of state funds by his party.
Wealthy businessman Panigoro's case involves allegations of graft at his oil company Medco. PDI-P is parliament's largest party and headed by Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
Lopa also said late last month he would make another attempt to bring former President Suharto to justice over allegations he amassed massive wealth while in office. A court threw out a graft case against Suharto last year on the grounds he was too ill. Suharto has denied the allegations.
As justice minister, Lopa won praise for shifting convicted timber tycoon Mohammad "Bob" Hasan, a long-time golfing buddy of Suharto, from a Jakarta jail to an infamous prison island off Java to make sure he served out a six-year sentence for graft.