Arientha Primanita & Heru Andriyanto – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday denied he had withheld permission for law enforcement officials to probe 61 regional heads, saying the requests had never been made.

Speaking before a cabinet meeting, he said he had duly signed all papers presented to him, often up to 20 per day, but had not received any requests from the Attorney General's Office to investigate regional heads for various violations.

"Normally any documents on my desk are signed off before the deadline, and no documents stay overnight except those requesting clemency for death-row inmates, in which case I need to consider the request for two or three days," the president said.

"I've asked my subordinates to see if the 61 letters [from the AGO to probe regional heads] were misplaced or not yet sent to me."

Last week, AGO spokesman Noor Rachmad said that since 2005, his office had been unable to question regional heads as suspects in corruption cases because of the lack of presidential approval to proceed.

But Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam said there was no attempt on the part of the president to thwart graft probes. "President Yudhoyono is committed to law enforcement and does not discriminate on corruption eradication," he said.

He said that if no approval had been obtained from the president within 60 days, prosecutors could proceed with probing district heads, or 30 days for legislators.

Attorney General Basrief Arief said his office would look into the whether the requests to investigate regional heads had been properly filed with the Cabinet Secretariat for submission.

"I've asked my staff to recheck again carefully and also look in the archives because there are some [suspects] whose terms have since expired," he said. He added he had issued a warning to Noor about "checking and guaranteeing accuracy before giving information."

On Monday, Basrief said the president was not to blame for the lack of approval to investigate the officials because the requests had never reached him.

"Not a single letter has reached the president's desk, so how can he grant permission?" he said. "Before those cases reach the president, they have to be fully complete. For regional law-enforcement officials, they have to first clarify the case to us before we can make a formal request. There must be comprehensive discussions on each case before we can lodge the formal request."