Jakarta – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri Wednesday swore in career prosecutor Muhammad Abdur Rahman as her new attorney general, a choice which left human rights advocates disappointed and sceptical.

Megawati said she had chosen someone from within the attorney general's office "to enhance the image of the office, which has recently been not too good."

She instructed Rahman, 59, a former deputy attorney general and a member of the office's expert staff, to "immediately put order inside the attorney general's office and meet the hopes of society for the upholding of the law."

But it was her choice of an insider that sparked criticism from rights defenders, who question the integrity and competence of staffers in the office.

Megawati named Rahman late Tuesday, ending an unexplained five-day delay in the appointment which analysts and politicans blamed on an intensive tug-of-war between political and other interested parties.

Rahman told journalists not to become fixated on corruption cases, adding that other crimes in human rights, the environment, illegal logging and banking also needed serious attention. "Don't just focus on the issue of corruption," he was quoted as saying by the state Antara news agency.

The choice of attorney general is widely seen as a barometer of the government's sincerity in eradicating corruption and seeking justice for past gross human rights violations.

Rahman pledged to continue the cases begun by his predecessors, which include corruption charges against former dictator Suharto and several high-profile business tycoons including Syamsul Nursalim and Prayogo Pangestu. Asked whether he had the courage to pursue politically sensitive cases, Rahman replied: "We'll see how it goes."

Rahman headed the team of state investigators which last year named 23 suspects in human rights crimes in East Timor in 1999. The team was criticised for omitting former armed forces chief General Wiranto and other high-ranking military officers who had been recommended for prosecution.

Sceptical rights defenders accused the president of making a compromise choice to appease politicians and the military. "This is a victory for the army lobby," Hendardi, chairman of the Human Rights and Legal Aid Association, told AFP. "I've heard that they were backing him for the post. This is a safe route for Megawati."

Hendardi said choosing a candidate from the attorney general's office was a backward step. "The bureaucracy at the [office] is a problem in itself. It's the first thing that has to be cleaned up and I think he'll hesitate to move against his colleagues," he said. "I don't think we can hope for much in law enforcement, either in tackling corruption or human rights abuses," Hendardi said.

Munir, the head of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, said: "The choice doesn't make us at all optimistic." He said Rahman's choice of suspects for prosecution over East Timor and his investigations into the 1984 army killing of demonstrators in Jakarta's Tanjung Priok "clearly benefited the violators of human rights abuses, like the generals."

However the secretary general of the national Human Rights Commission (Komnas Ham), Asmara Nababan, told AFP Rahman was "the best of the current stock" from the attorney general's office. Nababan said Megawati was seeking a neutral choice because political parties had been fighting for the "strategic post." Nababan said he had little hope Rahman would take "significant steps to clean up corruption," but he believed he would continue pursuing the East Timor cases.