Court postpones Suharto case hearings

An Indonesian court yesterday postponed hearings in a civil corruption case against late former president Suharto in observance of the official seven-day mourning period declared after his death.

The government is seeking US$1.4 billion in returned assets and damages from Suharto, who died aged 86 on Sunday, and the Supersemar Foundation, a charity he previously chaired.

The case -- part of a renewed effort by the government to bring the former dictator to justice -- alleges Suharto oversaw the misallocation of money intended for student scholarships.

Judges yesterday were expected to deliver their decision on whether the civil case should proceed.

The attorney general's office earlier this month rejected a request to abandon the civil case. A criminal corruption case against the former dictator was abandoned in 2006 because of his ill health.

"We are now in a national mourning period and the panel of judges are also mourning, so the trial will be postponed," said Wahjono, the head of the panel, adding that hearings would resume on Feb. 12.

Wahjono said he had ordered prosecutors to formally name at least one heir to stand in place of Suharto before the trial continues.

Meanwhile, the US declassified documents on Monday detailing how Washington propped up Suharto at the expense of democracy and human rights.

The documents, declassified following requests under a freedom of information law, showed the US administration did not use its leverage to bring Suharto to account during his 32-year reign until his last months in office.

"One thing that is clear from the tens of thousands of pages of which we had declassified concerning US ties with Suharto from 1966 to 1998 -- at no moment did US presidents ever exercise their maximum leverage over his regime to press for human rights or democratization," said Brad Simpson of the National Security Archive.

Simpson, who directs the Archive's Indonesia and East Timor documentation project, said the only time Washington "decisively intervened" in Indonesia was in 1998, when it was reeling from a financial meltdown amid unprecedented riots.