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AKARTA: The Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) is to verify the assets of the Supersemar Foundation with help from the South Jakarta District Court before seizing Rp 4.4 trillion (US$313 million) in penalties for misuse of scholarship funds.

Attorney General M Prasetyo said on Friday that it was essential to verify the assets before taking any action.

'€œWe don'€™t know if it has enough assets. Hopefully it has more than enough. [The South Jakarta District Court] will also help verify,'€ he told reporters at the AGO headquarters in South Jakarta.

Prasetyo said that the district court had the right to seize the assets, while the AGO'€™s role was to encourage the court to take action as speedily as possible.

'€œWe request a swift execution of the court order. The South Jakarta District Court will decide which assets are to be seized,'€ he said.

The government recently won its case against the foundation dating to 2008, when the AGO filed a lawsuit at the South Jakarta District Court accusing the Soeharto family and the foundation of misusing scholarship funds by diverting them to their own companies.

The court found the foundation guilty of misusing the funds and ordered it to pay a penalty.

The Supreme Court upheld the decision in 2010 and demanded that the foundation pay US$315 million and Rp 139.2 billion, which combined equal Rp 4.4 trillion under the present valuation.

The problem was made more complicated because the earlier decision by the lower court contained a typographical error, stating that the rupiah portion of the ordered payment was Rp 139.2 million rather than billion.

The Soeharto family is required to pay the penalty within eight days of the South Jakarta District Court and AGO receiving official notification of the ruling from the Supreme Court, which, as of Friday, neither had received.