Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Pressure is mounting on the Government of Dr B.J. Habibie to force the return to Indonesia of Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto, the son-in-law of former president Soeharto, to face allegations that he ordered the kidnapping and torture of pro-democracy activists.

Mr Marzuki Darusman, the chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights, said yesterday that the trial of 11 special force troops under General Prabowo's command was a miscarriage of justice because it would not bring General Prabowo to court.

General Prabowo, honourably discharged from the armed forces earlier this month, has been living in the Jordanian capital, Amman, for several months and has indicated he has no plans to return to Jakarta.

Mr Darusman described the trial, due to resume on Thursday, as a damage-control exercise for the armed forces rather than an attempt to establish the truth about the kidnappings and alleged torture of 27 anti-Soeharto activists in 1997 and 1998.

Witnesses who survived the kidnappings have told how they were beaten, burned with cigarette butts, forced to lie down on blocks of ice and had their heads held under water. But on the first day of the trial last week prosecutors made no mention of the torture allegations. At least 14 of the kidnap victims are believed to have been killed.

Mr Darusman said because the military prosecutor had claimed the 11 charged soldiers acted on their own initiative, their superiors, including General Prabowo, would escape conviction. "The whole trial is staged and is designed to minimise the damage done to ABRI [the armed forces] and it seems it will lead to a miscarriage of justice," he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Amien Rais, the leader of the National Mandate Party, one of Indonesia's four biggest political groups, has warned that Mr Soeharto is still a powerful force in the country's politics. "He will fight back," Dr Rais told the Merdeka newspaper.