Jakarta – Intruders ransacked the office of an Indonesian lawyer working for the US weekly magazine Time on Monday, days after former president Suharto filed a defamation suit against the magazine.
Security officers of the Bank Dharmala building in Central Jakarta discovered lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis's office ransacked at 4:30am. Monday morning.
"The ransacking was believed to have happened late last night. I was informed only after I had voted, which was at about 11," Lubis told AFP by phone.
He said his client files were taken in the raid and said the intruders must have been "high class criminals."
"They were not looking for any material wealth, but went after documents," he added.
Lubis did not rule out the possibility that the attack on his office could also be connected to some of his other clients, as well as Time.
"The whole office was ransacked, but particularly my office and all my documents of my clients are missing," he said, adding: "There is something bigger behind all this."
Lubis's clients include oil tycoon Arifin Panigoro and businesman Sofyan Wanandi, both known to be sympathetic to Indonesia's political opposition.
Lubis is also a member of the independent Indonesian Corruption Watchand the University Network for Free and Fair Elections (Unfrel).
Both Suharto and current President B.J. Habibie's government have allegedly suspected Panigoro and Wanandi of masterminding opposition to the state.
The ICW recently said it had found evidence that Attorney General Andi Ghalib, who is investigating the case of Suharto's alleged corruption, had been receiving bribes from troubled bankers. Ghalib has since denied the allegations.
Lubis said the police were "looking into" the attack on his office.
He told a press conference Thursday that Time continued to stand behind its May 24 report that Suharto and his family had amassed a 15-billion dollar fortune during the former strongman's 32 years in power.
Suharto on Wednesday filed a criminal defamation suit against Time magazine for a report alleging he had stashed some nine billion dollars in a foreign bank.