Jakarta – The South Jakarta District Court is coming under increasing fire from officials and legal activists for its many questionable acquittals of high-profile graft suspects.

Activists branded the court Tuesday a "graveyard" for justice, after its latest verdict exonerating former president of state-owned Bank Mandiri ECW Neloe and two other former directors, I Wayan Pugeg and M. Soleh Tasripan in a corruption scam.

The court found the three not guilty Monday of corruption in the disbursement of a Rp 165 billion (US$18.5 million) loan from the bank to PT Cipta Graha Nusantara. Prosecutors had sought 20 years for the men.

"This acquittal increasingly strengthens the image of the South Jakarta Court as a graveyard for efforts to combat corruption," Indonesia Corruption Watch deputy coordinator Danang Widoyoko told Antara.

Danang said the judges' decision to acquit the three because their lending had incurred no losses to the state was "extremely illogical". The judges ignored the fact that the loan later turned into a bad debt in 2002, he said.

Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh said he was not surprised by the acquittal of the three former directors. The South Jakarta District Court was "notorious" for its many controversial verdicts involving big-time graft suspects, he said.

The AGO would soon appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, spokesman Mashyudi Ridwan announced.

Judicial Commission chairman Busyro Muqoddas said he planned to summon the panel of judges led by Gatot Suharto to look into whether the judges had violated their code of ethics when releasing the men. However, he said his commission would first examine the verdict before summoning the judges.

The controversial acquittal also drew a reaction from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who asked the court to explain its verdict to the public.

Responding to the call, new South Jakarta District Court chief judge Andi Samsan Nganro said the public scrutiny of the verdict was a healthy, positive response. "We will open public access to all verdicts the court has and will hand down," he told The Jakarta Post on his first day of work.

"The transparency and public supervision of all trials is absolutely necessary to restore the court's tarnished image." He said improving the court's image would be his biggest challenge.

Andi said he had met the panel of judges who tried the case to seek a legal explanation for the acquittals.

"I will first learn about the case and the verdict before deciding whether there is a need to set up a special team to look into it." Andi replaced the court's former chief Sudarto, who was promoted to a senior judge in the Denpasar High Court in Bali.

Quoting the statements by the panel of judges, Andi said there was no legal requirement the judges must punish the three defendants.

"Three key elements that must be fulfilled in corruption charges have not been met. Referring to Law No. 31/1999 on corruption, the three breached standard procedures because they approved the disbursement of a loan for a private company without any feasibility study. However, there was no evidence that the approval enriched (the judges), or others, and it did not cause any material losses to the state," he said.

"Nor was the credit problematic because the company (Cipta Graha) had no financial problems repaying the loan to the bank," Andi said.