Heru Andriyanto – Indonesia's Attorney General's Office has finally decided: the criminal charges against two antigraft agency deputy chairmen would be dropped using the old Dutch law principle of "deponering."

Deponering, which allows prosecutors to halt a prosecution in the public interest, has long been recommended by legal experts to the AGO to end what many believe is a fraudulent case against Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah.

But the AGO only resorted to it almost 11 months after they first issued a letter dropping the case that was later successfully challenged in all levels of court by the antigraft pair's accuser, Anggodo Widjojo.

Anggodo said Bibit and Chandra extorted Rp 5.1 billion ($570,000) from him in exchange for halting a criminal investigation into his brother, Anggoro Widjojo, and lifting an overseas travel ban on him. But Anggodo is now serving time for trying to bribe the antigraft officials.

"According to the law, the attorney general reserves the rights to set aside a criminal case in the public interest," acting Attorney General Darmono told a press conference on Friday, four days after he scolded a deputy for announcing the same.

If the two deputy commissioners of the powerful Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) were brought to the court as defendants, "they would risk suspension from their job and it could disrupt and impede the works of the KPK," Darmono said.

"We have concluded that the fight against corruption is the national agenda that must be carried out to the utmost. This is what we mean as the interest of the public, the nation and most of the Indonesian people."

Darmono added his decision might not satisfy everyone, "and I apologize to those whose interest is not met by my decision."

But before the decision is signed, Darmono said he would formally seek advice from the House of Representatives, the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "The Supreme Court has earlier suggested that we issue deponering so its advice may be unnecessary," he said.

However, Darmono maintained that the absence of evidence against Bibit and Chandra was not part of the reason for dropping the case, which is widely believed to have been fabricated. "We maintain our stance that their case was actually complete and ready for trial. It has been dropped in the public interest and I think it's not relevant anymore to talk about evidence," Darmono said.

Renowned legal expert Todung Mulya Lubis welcomed the AGO's decision, saying it ended the ongoing leadership crisis at the antigraft commission.

"The commission is no longer taken hostage by the case against Bibit and Chandra. Deponering will for sure trigger more debates but the most important thing is that the commission can work normally in our fight against corruption," said Todung, who was part of the presidentially-sanctioned fact-finding team into the Chandra-Bibit case last year.

Last week, Bibit said he couldn't accept deponering as the best way to end the saga. "Deponering means that the criminal case did exist, and was dropped in the public interest," he said. "For me, the case never existed. It has been fabricated and it's not only me who said that, but also the Constitutional Court. The case should have been dropped because of no evidence, not for other reasons."