In the latest legal quagmire to envelop a member of the former first family, the Jakarta Police revealed over the weekend that they had charged former president Soeharto’s grandson, Ari Haryo Wibowo Hardjojudanto, known as Ari Sigit, over his alleged involvement in an embezzlement case
n the latest legal quagmire to envelop a member of the former first family, the Jakarta Police revealed over the weekend that they had charged former president Soeharto’s grandson, Ari Haryo Wibowo Hardjojudanto, known as Ari Sigit, over his alleged involvement in an embezzlement case.
While his grandfather was accused of swindling somewhere between US$15 billion and $35 billion from the state coffers during his rule, according to a 2004 Transparency International (TI) estimate, Ari stands accused of embezzling a mere Rp 2.5 billion (US$272,500).
Police allege that Ari, who spent time behind bars in 2001 for possession of ammunition, was involved in embezzling funds from PT Krakatau Wajatama, a subsidiary of state-owned steel company PT Krakatau Steel, in a land dredging project in Cilegon, Banten. “We named Ari a suspect several months ago,” police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto told reporters on Saturday.
Ari is charged with fraud and embezzlement. The charges carry a maximum penalty of four years’ imprisonment. The police spokesman said officers had summoned Ari for questioning as a suspect in the case but to no avail because he was reportedly in Singapore.
Separately, the Jakarta Police’s general crimes directorate chief Sr. Comr. Toni Harmanto said that detectives were set to question Ari as a suspect “sometime next week”.
“We had summoned him [for questioning] on May 7, but he didn’t come. His lawyer requested we give them time until next week,” he said.
Ari Sigit’s lawyer Bontor Tobing has previously said that Ari denied all the allegations and that his client was being exploited in the case. “I think someone’s exploiting Ari as he is part of the Cendana clan,” Bontor said when accompanying Ari to police questioning in January.
This is not the first legal case to keep the Cendana clan – a nickname for Soeharto’s family, derived from the street in Menteng, Central Jakarta, where the family has resided for decades — in the national limelight in recent years.
In July 2002, Soeharto’s youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra, or Tommy, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after he was found guilty of hiring two hit men to kill Supreme Court Justice Syafiudin Kartasasmita. Tommy was freed from prison in 2006 after a series of five remissions to his sentence.
The South Jakarta District Court in August last year sent Ari Sigit’s daughter, Putri Aryanti Haryowibowo, to a rehabilitation program after she was arrested for possession of 0.88 grams of crystal methamphetamine. Prosecutors originally demanded judges sentence Putri to 15 years in prison.
Putri’s mother — and Ari Sigit’s ex-wife — Gusti Maya Firanti Noor, was also tried for possession of the same illegal substance in 2000. She was sentenced to eight months in Pondok Bambu Women’s Penitentiary in East Jakarta, but was allowed to leave the prison five weeks early.
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