Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, Padang – Even though the West Sumatra Prosecutor's Office is considered a pioneer in investigating graft cases in Indonesia, in reality however, the office has not been serious about fighting corruption this year, says a Padang lawyer.

"The reluctance of the law enforcers (to uncover graft cases) can be seen from the many frozen cases and the fact that the suspects are still free," Alvon Kurnia Palm, chairman of the Padang chapter of the Legal Aid Institute, said Saturday.

Speaking in his capacity as a spokesperson for a coalition of antigraft non-governmental organizations, Alvon cited as an example that seven corruption cases handled by the prosecutor's office and the police in West Sumatra had nearly ground to a halt.

One of them had even been halted at the stage of its execution, namely the sentencing of 33 former members of the West Sumatra Legislative Council for the 1999-2004 period who were found guilty of misappropriating Rp 5.9 billion (US$621,052) of the council budget. The Supreme Court upheld the verdict of the lower court on Aug. 2, 2005, but the sentence has not been executed to date.

Three of the former legislators were sentenced to five years imprisonment and the other 30 received four years each.

The other six cases had been stalled at the investigation stage, one of which had even been completely dropped. They dealt with a corruption case involving former West Sumatra governor Zainal Bakar, former Solok mayor Yumler Lahar and members of the Solok Legislative Council.

"The investigation into the six cases has actually been conducted over the last two years in line with Presidential Instruction No. 5/2004 in which the prosecutor's office was given a period of three months to do its job," Alvon said.

"This shows that both the prosecutors and the police have tried to indefinitely postpone the legal process, especially the cases involving administration figures," he added.