Suharto must attend trial next week

The authorities in Indonesia have announced that former president Suharto must personally attend his trial for corruption which is due to start in a week's time August 31st.

Lawyers for the former leader -- who is seventy-nine -- have already said that he is mentally unfit to attend.

Mr Suharto is charged with taking more than five-hundred-million dollars from charitable organisations he controlled until his overthrow in 1998.

The BBC Southeast Asia correspondent says, however, that many Indonesians believe that the figure mentioned in the charges is only a fraction of the money stolen by the Suharto entourage over a period of more than thirty years.

Our correspondent says the court appearance will be a crowning humiliation for the former leader -- despite the fact that the current President, Abdurrahman Wahid, has said he will pardon Mr Suharto if he is convicted.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service