Jakarta – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said he will not intervene after prosecutors decided to drop corruption charges against ailing former dictator Suharto.

Yudhoyono's remarks came as hundreds of students held a protests in Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya to demand Suharto be tried for corruption during his 32 years of autocratic rule.

"I respect the supremacy of law and therefore I will not interfere in the case of former president Suharto," Yudhoyono was quoted by the state news agency Antara as saying. "I must not step into (the case) because I could be wrong," he said.

Yudhoyono won Indonesia's first direct presidential election in 2004 on pledges to root out endemic corruption and uphold the rule of law.

Prosecutors had accused Suharto of misusing 419 million dollars, as well as another 1.3 trillion rupiah (worth 144 million dollars today) from seven charitable foundations he established during his rule. The attorney general's office this month dropped the charges, citing Suharto's deteriorating health.

One of Suharto's daughters, Titik Hediati, on Saturday apologised to the nation on behalf of her family during a visit to a camp sheltering refugees fleeing the rumbling Mount Merapi volcano in Central Java.

"On this occasion I would like to say that (Suharto) is only human, with all his strengths and weaknesses, and we sincerely apologise for any mistakes he made during his 32-year rule," Hediati said on a broadcast on Metro TV. "He is far from perfect and perfection belongs only to Allah," she added.

Lawyers and rights activists said they would file a class-action lawsuit on Monday against the attorney general's office to demand judges overturn the decision to abandon the Suharto case. Activists have also demanded Suharto, who stepped down amid mounting unrest in 1998, be tried for rights abuses during his military-backed rule.

Suharto did not attend any of three sessions of his corruption trial in 2000, pleading ill health.

On Friday the former autocrat underwent his third operation since he was admitted to Jakarta's Pertamina hospital in May 4 for intestinal bleeding. Doctors said Saturday his condition had improved but he was still in critical condition.

Yudhoyono called on Suharto at the hospital on Friday and described his condition as "serious".