No one caught in last year's Operation Hutan Lestari has been convicted of illegal logging because conflicting regulations are making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to fight the crime, the police say.

However, environmental groups have also blamed graft in law enforcement agencies, including the police, prosecutors and the country's notorious courts, for illegal loggers being let off the hook.

In 2005, police launched the second Operation Hutan Lestari and uncovered 137 cases of illegal logging in Papua. However, 52 of these cases never went to trial, while 13 others were later dropped because of a lack of evidence. Another 18 cases proceeded to trials but all of the defendants were acquitted.

National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Bambang Kuncoko said the 1999 Forestry Law, which gives the forestry minister authority to issue logging permits, conflicted with regional autonomy laws, which gives regents the rights to issue permits for small community-based projects.

Environmental groups say regional permits are being manipulated by unscrupulous officials, including regents and members of the military and police, who are working with local middle men and foreign logging companies to illegally extract the wood.

"Due to this regulation, there have been various interpretations among authorities in determining whether a log is legal or not," Bambang said.

In a 2005 police raid in Papua, three foreign nationals were detained for logging in the province. However, due to what police said was a lack of evidence, these men were set free. Police also said they had difficulties guarding and securing evidence.

"The cost of detaining a ship is huge plus there are the security costs of guarding evidence in remote places," Bambang said. "These conditions means some evidence gets damaged or lost, is not able to be presented in trials," he said.

The police have urged the Attorney General's Office to speed up the trial process to help the police. Former AGO spokesmen Mashyudi Ridwan said prosecutors had done their best to process the cases.

Regarding the 18 cases in which defendants had been acquitted, Mashyudi said the verdicts were the judges' final decisions. "We have brought serious charges against them but the verdicts were the judges'," he said. He said that the office was appealing the 18 acquittals made in the local Papua district courts.

Telapak researcher Rizman Azmi Aziz said prosecutors could charge illegal loggers with a series of crimes under the Criminal Code, conservation and antigraft laws. Illegal logging because of its scale was hard to conceal, and a single photograph could be damming evidence, he said.

Taufik Alimi of the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute, which promotes certification for Indonesian timber products, said the state should be prosecuting foreign logging companies under money laundering laws.

"I believe this would create a deterrent effect, especially regarding foreign nationals, because money laundering involves Interpol," he said.

[Ika Krismantari and Tb. Arie Rukmantara.]