Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – The National Police have taken offense at the cartoon piggy banks depicted on the cover of Tempo magazine's latest issue, and are threatening to sue the news weekly.

The police said Wednesday that the cover illustration on this week's Tempo magazine is offensive because it "compares the police to the animal".

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang claimed he had received many complaints about the magazine's cover. "Imagine, we have 406,000 officers nationwide, and they and probably their relatives, too, are offended," he said.

Edward said the police were planning to file a criminal lawsuit for defamation and a civil lawsuit for immaterial losses that all police members in the country have suffered.

The National Police's head of public information, Sr. Comr. Marwoto Soeto, said the police had sent a letter of complaint to the magazine.

Marwoto said the National Police had once protested against the magazine over its edition which carried a cover story about a corruption syndicate in the mining sector that also insinuated involvement of high-ranking police officers.

"There has been no satisfactory settlement since the letter of complaint was sent," Marwoto said.

National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Zainuri Lubis said the magazine "has no heart and acts childishly by featuring an illustration of a police officer enslaved by piggy banks".

"The magazine seems to intentionally dent our image while the corruption they reported might have been committed by only a few individuals."

This week's Tempo magazine edition ran a cover story about suspicious bank accounts of several high-ranking police officers, a controversial issue that was first brought into the light in 2005.

The magazine, citing anonymous sources, reported that at least seven middle-to-high-ranking officers had implausibly large bank accounts and had conducted suspicious financial transactions between 2005 and 2009.

Tempo magazine chief editor Wahyu Muryadi said the magazine had never intended to humiliate the police with the use of pigs on the cover.

"The piggy banks represent bank accounts, the edition's theme. Why pig? In Indonesian, that pot for saving money is traditionally called celengan, which means piggy bank. It derives from the word celeng, which means pig," he told The Jakarta Post. "If they plan to sue us, its their right," he added.

National Police Commission secretary Adnan Pandupradja said the police's decision to sue the magazine was "not tactical and instead could potentially be counterpro-ductive".