Soeharto's gilded palace falls at a stroke

Australian Financial Review February 12, 2000

Soeharto's gilded palace falls at a stroke

By Tim Dodd, Jakarta

Prosecutors investigating former Indonesian President Soeharto say they have the power to question him at his Jakarta house if poor health prevents him from answering corruption allegations at an official hearing.

Mr Soeharto's lawyers are expected to argue that the former president is too ill to answer a summons, issued late Thursday, to appear at the Attorney-General's Office in Jakarta on Monday.

According to one of his lawyers, Mr Juan Felix Tampubolon, Mr Soeharto had been disabled mentally and could not speak properlysince a stroke in July last year.

"Mentally he has difficulty in communicating properly. He cannot combine one idea with another. He is so sick he cannot speak well," the lawyer told the Republika newspaper.

Mr Soeharto has rarely been seen in public since the stroke.

A spokesman for Indonesia's crusading Attorney-General, Mr Marzuki Darusman, said that if Mr Soeharto did not arrive for questioning, prosecutors would be empowered to go to his compound in central Jakarta to question him, the Indonesian Observer said.

The investigation into Mr Soeharto's wealth, dropped last year by the Habibie administration, was restarted in December by Mr Darusman. He said he had new evidence about Mr Soeharto's misuse of his authority to finance the charitable foundations which he headed, money used to benefit his family and cronies.

President Abdurrahman Wahid has said that he favours pardoning Mr Soeharto but only on condition that he apologises for his wrongdoing and returns money illegally gained.

Prosecutors say they want to question Mr Soeharto about the awarding of lucrative business monopolies to his children and his management of charitable foundations, which were a backdoor means of supporting the family's wealth.

Mr Soeharto's youngest son Tommy benefited from two blatant abuses mentioned by team members conducting the Soeharto investigation. One was the 1990 clove monopoly, and the other were the tax relief and duty exemptions given to Tommy's Timor national car project.

The charitable foundations headed by the former president were shadowy organisations which collected money for welfare purposes but made large investments in business. In 1998, after he stepped down as president, Mr Soeharto transferred control of seven foundations worth $US530 million ($840 million) to the Indonesian Government.

Last year Time magazine estimated the Soeharto family fortune at $US15 billion ($23.8 billion) but provided no evidence to back the claim. Forbes magazine put the value significantly lower - at about $US4 billion ($6.3 billion).