Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Attorney General Basrief Arief says that filing a case review to challenge the acquittal of former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy chairman Muchdi Purwoprandjono would be against the law.

"We are law enforcers who enforce the law. We don't violate it!" Basrief said Monday when asked why the Attorney General's Office (AGO) had not filed a case review with the Supreme Court against Muchdi's acquittal.

Muchdi was acquitted from charges of the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib who died as a result of arsenic poisoning in 2004.

Basrief cited Criminal Code procedures that grant the authority to file a case review against a Supreme Court ruling only to defendants. "The AGO is not a defendant!" Basrief said.

However, the AGO has frequently filed case reviews using a jurisprudence that it says overrides the Criminal Code. For example it filed a case review against the acquittal of former pilot, Pollycarpus Budihari Prijanto, also a defendant in Munir's murder case. Following the review, Pollycarpus was sent to prison for 20 years.

Basrief denied that the AGO had been inconsistent in its approach to the Muchdi and Pollycarpus cases.