Heru Andriyanto – Corruption suspects may avoid detention while being investigated by the Attorney General's Office if they return misappropriated funds under a controversial policy focusing on the recovery of state assets, a senior prosecutor said on Tuesday.

The AGO has been criticized for adopting a soft approach toward graft suspects by dropping cases or allowing suspects to remain free during investigations.

"The handling of corruption cases should optimize the recovery of state money," said Marwan Effendy, deputy attorney general for special crimes. "Our policy is to let corruption suspects go free during an investigation if they return stolen state funds."

He said that the repayment of stolen money would not halt legal proceedings, because according to the anticorruption law, passed in 1999, cases are not dropped even if the stolen assets are returned.

A recent case involving businessman Tan Kian provides an example of this policy. Tan is suspected of misappropriating $13 million from state-run insurance firm PT Asabri to build the Plaza Mutiara office building in Jakarta, of which he maintains sole ownership. Although he was first identified as a suspect last year, prosecutors decided not to detain him after he repaid $13 million in full. Two other suspects have since been convicted and each sentenced to four years in jail in the case, but Tan remains a suspect.

Marwan said that Attorney General Hendarman Supadji had told all chief provincial prosecutors to focus on the recovery of stolen assets in graft cases.

Under national anticorruption laws, the failure to repay stolen assets is punishable by additional jail time. "But many convicts choose to serve additional time rather than repay, because the sentences are too soft," Marwan said.

Judges commonly extend jail terms for officials convicted of corruption by three to six months if they fail to repay stolen assets, due to a lack of firm guidelines on how much jail terms should be extended in relation to the amount of unpaid stolen funds.

According to an AGO document, prosecutors last year handled more than 1,100 corruption cases and recovered Rp 8.9 trillion ($747 million) in cash and Rp 2.8 trillion in assets.

The AGO's policy is potentially unfair, however, because the Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, places all graft suspects in custody before their trials, said a leading antigraft campaigner.

"The soft approach marks a big difference between the AGO and KPK," said Danang Widoyoko, coordinator of Indonesian Corruption Watch.