Ardian Wibisono – The Attorney General's Office announced on Friday that the Rp 6.7 trillion ($710.2 million) bailout of PT Bank Century was above board and involved no wrongdoing.

The statement immediately drew fire from a prominent anticorruption activist, who said it was premature and set a bad precedent at the outset of the new government's term.

Marwan Effendy, the deputy attorney general for special crimes, said the AGO's investigation found no indications of criminal activity in the bailout.

"The first reason is that it was based on the law, namely Emergency Regulation No. 4 [of the 2008 Financial System Safety Net law]," Marwan said.

"Second, there are no established parameters for deciding whether or not [the failure of] a bank poses a systemic threat. That decision is up to Bank Indonesia and the government, and we don't have the right to say whether it is right or wrong."

Yanuar Risky, a banking analyst and senior member of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said it was too early for the AGO to make such a declaration. He noted that an investigation by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) was still ongoing.

"The statement also flies in the face of the BPK's preliminary audit, which found that there were indications of irregularities when the bank was rescued," Yanuar said.

"It would have been better to wait for the definitive audit findings before making statements saying no crimes or corruption were involved."

Yanuar noted that abuse of power was also an issue in the case. "Under the United Nations anticorruption convention, abuse of power in framing a regulation or in managing taxpayers' money to benefit particular individuals is categorized as a crime," he said.

Marwan added that Bank Century, which recently changed its name to Bank Mutiara, had to be sold within three years to recoup the cost of the bailout.

Marwan defended the officials involved in the bank's rescue. "Lets not jump to erroneous conclusions that could discredit officials," he said. "You should have sympathy for them, their reputations could be damaged."

The BPK initially said its audit of the bailout would be concluded by this past Monday. It later said it would be delayed.

Anwar Nasution, the former head of the BPK, said on Monday that the audit was 70 percent complete, with the remaining work being carried out under the supervision of BPK's newly appointed board of directors.

Hasan Bisri, a BPK board member, had previously said that the audit's date of completion would depend on how quickly the Financial Transaction Reports Analysis Center (PPATK) would be able to trace the flow of funds from Bank Century, which was not an easy task.