Ezra Sihite – Antigraft officials told the House of Representatives on Wednesday that there was strong reason to believe that the decision to bail out Bank Century in 2008 was flawed, but legislators were left disappointed after expecting them to name suspects.

Abraham Samad, chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), said at a House hearing that several experts, including state law expert Saldi Isra from Andalas University in Padang and criminal law expert Romli Atmasasmita from Padjadjaran University in Bandung, had said the decision violated the law.

"Their opinions will be used to intensify our investigation," he said. But Abraham declined to say when the KPK would name any graft suspects, prompting criticism from legislators.

Lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo said it was disappointing that the KPK was still unable to name any suspects for graft in the Rp 6.7 trillion ($710 million) bailout.

"We had high expectations that they would report to us that they were going to name some suspects. However, they only reported opinions that they got from experts, just to confirm that the bailout violated the law," the Golkar official said.

Expectations of a breakthrough in the investigation, which to date has only netted a handful of officials for banking violations but no graft charges, were stoked last week after the KPK announced it had uncovered significant new evidence.

At the same time, the National Police said they were ready to send new cases linked to the bailout to prosecutors, including fresh charges against the bank's former co-owner, Robert Tantular.

Legislators have blamed senior officials at Bank Indonesia, the Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK) and the Deposit Insurance Agency (LPS) of violations in the November 2008 bailout.

At the time, the central bank was headed by Boediono, now the vice president, while the KSSK was under the leadership of then-Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who is now a managing director at the World Bank. At the height of the furor over the policy, legislators attempted, but failed, to invoke an inquiry that could have led to impeachment proceedings against Boediono.