Heru Andriyanto – Attorney General Hendarman Supandji plans to rotate his deputies, officials said on Friday, in a move apparently meant to ease mounting public criticism of his failure to properly censure staff involved in the controversial trial of tax official Gayus Tambunan.
"I have asked the attorney general not to keep me in my post too long. Two years is enough," said Marwan Effendy, the deputy attorney general for special crimes.
Marwan, whose main job is to deal with corruption cases, will reportedly become deputy for internal supervision, overseeing the conduct of prosecutors. "Yes I heard that rumor, but I have not received a presidential decree on that," he said.
Deputy Attorney General Darmono confirmed the report but declined to elaborate. "Just wait, it will be announced in due course," he said.
Unconfirmed reports circulating inside the Attorney General's Office said the troubled deputy for general crimes, Kamal Sofyan Nasution, who was recently reprimanded by Hendarman for his handling of the Gayus case, would become the new deputy for civil and state administrative affairs, in place of Edwin Pamimpin Situmorang, who is likely to become deputy for intelligence.
The current deputy for intelligence, M Amari, will reportedly take over Marwan's job as the deputy for special crimes.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has the final say on appointing deputies, with the attorney general proposing names. Yudhoyono has rejected Hendarman's suggestions in the past.
Emerson Yuntho, deputy chairman of Indonesia Corruption Watch, dismissed the planned rotation as an inadequate response to the troubles inside the Attorney General's Office.
"It seems the AGO is making efforts to look as if it is taking measures post the Gayus scandal," he said. "But what is happening is nothing more than an exchange of jobs. The ranks of the deputies will be basically unaffected."
The AGO is currently under pressure for not taking legal measures against its officials who dropped the major charges of corruption and money laundering against Gayus, who was eventually acquitted of a relatively minor embezzlement charge.
Police have named two officers and the presiding judge in the trial as suspects in the Gayus case, but the AGO only gave internal disciplinary sanctions to 12 prosecutors who were involved.
"Even if sanctions were handed to the deputies, it wouldn't be enough" because the only person we want to lose his job is the attorney general, Emerson said. "He has failed to bring reform to his office and to lead the country's anticorruption campaign. We need a new attorney general."