"If some Suharto family member needs to buy off a judge ... that's easy for them to do," said William Liddle, an Indonesia expert at Ohio State University. "Virtually all court decisions in this country are bought."
There is enough evidence against Suharto to try him under international law for crimes against humanity and genocide, said Richard Tanter, a professor of international relations and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic died in UN custody while on trial for war crimes and genocide; Chile's General Augusto Pinochet was facing human rights abuse allegations when he died at age 91; proceedings are under way against Liberia's ex-President Charles Taylor; and Cambodia is prosecuting Khmer Rouge leaders for the killing fields.
But previous calls that Suharto be tried for graft and rights abuses have all but died away in the wake of his illness, with even his fiercest critics in the predominantly Muslim country saying this is the time to forgive.
"The idea of pursuing old, sick men is unattractive, but the basic deterrence function of such prosecutions largely outweighs" any drawbacks, Tanter countered. "For the ghosts of all the slaughtered and tortured, I'd like to see justice."
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