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JAKARTA - The health of Indonesia's ailing former president Suharto has not improved and is "quite worrying", with officials on top alert, health minister Siti Fadilah Supari said late Tuesday.
Suharto was admitted to hospital with a weakening heart and kidney and lung problems on Friday. His condition was seen as improving Monday but by Tuesday had relapsed.
"It has not improved, it is still quite worrying and we are all on top alert," Supari said after visiting the president at around 1600 GMT Tuesday.
The minister told the Kompas newspaper that Suharto could still communicate, though not easily. His doctors could not be reached for comment early Wednesday.
Doctors have scanned the heart of the former president, who ruled Indonesia with an iron-fist for 32 years until his downfall in 1998, to check on blood flow to its muscle after a section appeared to stop working on Tuesday.
Suharto's haemoglobin count has also fallen despite receiving blood transfusions. His worsening health condition has prompted doctors to ban most visitors.
The Jakarta Post reported that the Indonesian military had prepared five planes to eventually carry Suharto's remains, family and other mourners back to the family cemetery in Central Java.
"It is just preparations made by the TNI (military) so that it will be able to do its duties once ordered to do so by the government," military spokesman Sagom Tamboen told the newspaper.
The reclusive Suharto, who has never been tried for allegedly embezzling billions of dollars during his rule, has been admitted to hospital suffering a variety of ailments in recent years, including at least two strokes.
A criminal trial against him for corruption was abandoned in 2006 because of poor health. That disappointed many keen to see justice over the alleged theft of billions of dollars by Suharto, his family and cronies while in power.
But Suharto is still the target of a civil lawsuit, with the government seeking 1.4 billion dollars in damages as well as the return of assets allegedly accrued through a charitable foundation Suharto chaired while in power.
Indonesia's attorney general on Monday rejected calls by Suharto's allies for the civil case and others being investigated to be dropped. - AFP/ir
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