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Tommy cleared in one graft case, two more to go
The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has dropped a corruption case against former president Soeharto's youngest son, and will soon lift a ban forbidding him from leaving Indonesia
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The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has dropped a corruption case against former president Soeharto's youngest son, and will soon lift a ban forbidding him from leaving Indonesia.
Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra was declared not guilty in a monopoly case because he returned the stolen money to the state, AGO spokesman Jasman Pandjaitan told journalists Friday.
In the 1990s, Tommy chaired the Clove Marketing and Buffer Agency (BPPC) assigned to regulate clove trading, a key ingredient in a popular variety of Indonesian cigarettes.
The BPPC was established in 1992 by a presidential decree issued by Soeharto. From 1991 to 1998, the government allocated the body loans worth Rp 759 billion via Bank Indonesia for it to buy cloves directly from farmers.
The money was allegedly embezzled by Tommy and other BPPC officials through several companies belonging to acquaintances of Soeharto.
Jasman said the state had incurred no losses in the matter because Tommy had returned all of the funds, including interest on the loans and income generated by the money.
"The BPPC had already returned some Rp 759 billion along with the interests in 2005. It amounted to a total of more than Rp 900 billion. Therefore, the AGO dropped the investigation," he said.
He said the AGO would also lift the overseas travel ban on Tommy.
The AGO reopened the BPPC case in July 2007, naming Tommy a suspect in the scandal and banning him from leaving the country.
Assistant Attorney General for Special Crimes Marwan Effendi said the AGO had Friday officially ordered all investigations into the BPPC case to cease.
"Should there be any party dissatisfied with this (decision), they can file a lawsuit," he said.
Earlier in the day, Tommy visited the AGO building to sign an official dossier.
With the BPPC case dropped, Tommy is now only implicated in two graft cases involving theft of government money: Vista Bella and the Supersemar fund.
Along with his siblings, Tommy became extremely rich during his father's three-decade-long autocratic regime, which ended in 1998.
Tommy owned numerous businesses, including an airline and a project to produce a national car brand, which failed.
Tommy was conditionally released from jail in 2006 after he had served only a third of his original sentence for plotting the murder of a Supreme Court justice who had convicted him in another graft case.
