Jakarta – An Indonesian corruption watchdog said Tuesday a break-in had failed to destroy evidence backing claims that the chief investigator probing allegations over Suharto's fortune was himself corrupt.
The independent Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) told a press conference that it still had the documents allegedly detailing that Attorney General Andi Ghalib had received bribes totalling some 1.6 million dollars. It also called for Ghalib's immediate dismissal.
ICW coordinator Teten Masduki charged that the money was taken in bribes from Suharto cronies, and said despite the break-in the ICW still had in its possession concrete evidence of Ghalib's bank statements.
The statements could be produced in court if necessary, he said. "That wealth is highly abnormal when taking into account the official salary he has earned since being sworn in on June 17, 1998," Masduki said.
Ghalib's official monthly salary is understood to be about 7.5 million rupiah or just over 1,000 dollars.
"President Habibie must immediately and dishonorably discharge Attorney General Lieutenant General Andi Muhammad Ghalib from his post to restore the dignity of the institution as an upholder of the law," Masduki said.
ICW found that Ghalib has five accounts and 12 deposits under his and his wife's names in an unidentifed bank totalling 9.2 billion rupiah as of June 1, 1999. He did not detail where the rest of the money was held.
"We suspect him not only of bribery but also corruption," Bambang Widjojanto, another ICW member said.
The ICW Thursday called on the military police and the national police to investigate Ghalib on suspicion of criminal acts and seek an immediate freeze of the accounts.
"We urge the military police to be more active and speed up their investigation into this case before all the money disappears," Masduki said.
Ghalib, who celebrated his 53rd birthday on the day the ICW filed its report, has since denied the corruption charges and said the transfers could have been for the Indonesian Wrestling Association (PGSI), which he heads.
One of the accounts, which Ghalib has claimed as a PGSI account, had already been opened three weeks before he came to head the association in April, the ICW said.
A trace of one of the accounts showed that Ghalib had made a bank transfer of 495 million rupiah (about 63,000 dollars) for a payment of some seven kilograms (some 15.4 pounds) of gold to a jeweller in central Jakarta.
Meanwhile ICW member lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, whose office was ransacked on Monday, said he found client files missing as well as files of the organizations he belongs to.
Lubis at a separate press conference Tuesday said he had not accused Ghalib of masterminding the break-in of his office in a central Jakarta high-rise.
But he said he "doubted" it had anything to do with his work in the University Network for Free and Fair Election (UNFREL).
UNFREL is among the observer groups monitoring Indonesia's freest elections in four decades, held on Monday, the first since the resignation of Suharto in May, 1998.
Other files of Lubis's clients missing included oil tycoon Arifin Panigoro and businesman Sofyan Wanandi, both known to be sympathetic to Indonesia's political opposition.
Lubis on Monday did not rule out the possibility that the attack on his office could be connected to some of his other clients, including the US weekly magazine Time, which published an investigative report alleging that Suharto and his family had some 15 billion dollars in wealth.
Suharto on Wednesday filed a criminal defamation suit against Time for reporting that he had stashed some nine billion dollars of his alleged fortune in an Austrian bank.
Ghalib has been in charge of the months-long Indonesian probe into Suharto's wealth. His claims to have found no evidence of corruption have been met with charges of deliberate foot-dragging.
Late Tuesday, the government of Suharto's successor President B.J. Habibie said it had decided to set up a commission to monitor civil servants salaries – before and after they took office.