Jakarta – In an apparent about face, Indonesia's top prosecutor said there had been contact but no negotiations between the family of former president Suharto and the government over a possible hand-over of any ill-gotten wealth, newspapers reported Saturday.
"There are no negotiations. Who said there are negotiations?" Attorney General Marzuki Darusman was quoted by the Republika daily as saying. "There's no compromise between the government, in this case the attorney general's office ... and Cendana." Cendana is the street address commonly used to refer to the Suharto family.
Darusman's comments came after both Suharto's lawyers and the named government go-between, Mines and Energy Minister Bambang Yudhoyono, denied that any such talks were under way.
The attorney general also said his office's investigations into Suharto's alleged corruption and power abuse during his 32 years in power were continuing.
He conceded however that there had been some kind of a "contact" between the government and the Suharto family, but said it did not amount to negotiations.
"Stay away from the word negotiation. This implies commercialization of the law," said Darusman, who has pledged to bring Suharto to court before August In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, Darusman himself said talks were underway between the government and the Suharto family over a possible handover of Suharto's alleged billions.
He said Yudhoyono – like Suharto a former general – had held several conversations in the past weeks with Suharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana over the issue.
The statement followed a remark by President Abdurrahman Wahid in New York on Tuesday that the former president's family wanted a government pledge of immunity from prosecution in exchange for the handover.
Wahid, speaking to the Indonesian community in Pakistan on Friday, said Yudhoyono had been chosen because he was considered to be "a good negotiator."
Suharto's chief lawyer Juan Felix Tampubolon has denied knowledge of any such negotiations between the Suharto children, all of them wealthy entrepreneurs, and the government.
Darusman reopened the investigation into Suharto, who is suspected of massive corruption during his decades in power, after an earlier probe was halted by the previous government last year.
Suharto, 79, has been under house arrest since May 29 and is barred from leaving the country, in moves prosecutors said were aimed at facilitating his questioning.
His lawyers and doctors have argued that he is unfit for questioning on the corruption charges because of loss of memory and speech problems. They have also said he might have suffered brain damage as a result of the stroke. But until now state prosecutors have insisted on questioning Suharto every Monday in the presence of a government-appointed team of doctors.
The former strongman has been hospitalized twice, once for a mild stroke and once for intestinal bleeding, since he stepped down amid massive student protests and an economic crisis in May 1998. On Saturday the former autocrat underwent a brain scan at a Jakarta hospital, his lawyer Tampubolon said.
"It was an additional check-up prior to a comprehensive examination. It wasn't long, only 45 minutes to one hour," he told AFP. Tampubulon said the scan was the only test carried out at the Harapan Kita cardiac hospital in West Jakarta.