Jakarta officials seek to jail Suharto's son

Jakarta officials seek to jail Suharto's son
REUTERS

JAKARTA, NOV 3: Indonesian prosecutors on Friday went to arrest the youngest son of former President Suharto and take him to jail to start an 18-month sentence for graft, but the brash businessman was not home.

A lawyer for Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra said his client was still in Jakarta, but refused to say where.

"Don't worry, Tommy is in Jakarta," lawyer Nudirman Munir said via his mobile phone.

"We waited for court officials but they didn't come, so we left the house. We thought it's already past working hours."

Many businesses in this mainly Muslim nation work only half a day on Friday, the Muslim prayer day.

Hordes of reporters -- along with prosecutors and police --converged on Tommy's plush central Jakarta residence.

Prosecutors said they would wait for him to return but gave no timeframe.

Jakarta has been abuzz with rumours over when Tommy would be sent to the capital's Cipinang prison since President Abdur Rahman Wahid on Thursday signed a decree formally rejecting the former racing car driver's plea for a pardon over his conviction.

"We are now going to his house to execute the sentence,"Fachmi, the Chief prosecutor in Tommy's land-scam case, earlier said.

Tommy's conviction marks the first for any member of Suharto's family over graft. Prosecutors have separately appealed against a court decision last September to dismiss a corruption case against Suharto himself on the grounds that he was too ill.

The sight of the younger Suharto being escorted behind Cipinang's dank grey walls would captivate ordinary Indonesians, who have long felt he symbolised some of the worst excesses of the country's corrupt past.

Antasari Azhar, head of the South Jakarta attorney-general's office, said authorities had issued a warrant for Tommy's arrest.

The Supreme Court in late September overturned an earlier court's decision and sentenced Tommy over a mid-1990s land scam that caused losses to the state of $11 million.

Wahid's Chief spokesman, Wimar Witoelar, on Friday defended the time it was taking the government to put Tommy behind bars, saying the Suhartos were being protected by powerful allies.

"Do you remember how you got your first kiss? Sounds simple, very hard to do," he told a foreign correspondents' lunch.

"We have never arrested the son of a super, super strong person like Suharto who is still super, super strong, who is protected by many, many people -- both official people and unofficial people.

"Even if they are not systematically organised to protect them, (they) are at least on an ad hoc basis available for a day, two days, you know, just like renting a car... to put cogs in the mechanism, to think up legal delays in the system."

Witoelar, once jailed as a dissident by Suharto, said he expected Tommy to put up a strong fight to stay out of jail.

"What is at stake from the point of view of Tommy Suharto is a jail cell with just a 14 inch television set and a cot," he said. "I've been there. I know it's miserable.

"Even for me, who never lived with limousines and bodyguards and lots of `interesting' companions."

Witoelar said Wahid remained committed to bringing the former president to trial -- through appeal or launching a new case.

"Suharto must not escape from the hands of the law while this government is in power. Until that job is done, the mission of reform is not done," he said.

Tommy has remained free pending his pardon plea.

He has separately appealed the Supreme Court's decision, and officials at the South Jakarta attorney-general's office have said he could be jailed while that appeal was being heard.

A wealthy businessman who prospered in the 1990s with the help of his connections, Tommy has admitted to being a "bit negligent" over the land scam, annoying government officials over his failure to express remorse.

He established an array of businesses under the Humpuss Group of companies in the 1990s.

The 79-year-old Suharto stepped down in disgrace in May 1998 in the face of an explosion of unrest in Jakarta. The former leader, who has suffered three strokes, and his family have denied any wrongdoing.