Vaudine England – The timber tycoon and golfing buddy of former Indonesian president Suharto, Mohammad "Bob" Hasan, has been moved to a high-security island jail following fears he might escape his central Jakarta cell.
The imprisonment of Hasan, 70, is the sole success so far in the Government's campaign against past corruption. He was sentenced to six years for causing the state losses of US$243 million in a fraudulent aerial mapping survey.
"He arrived on a special jail ferry from Cilacap this morning and has now been put in solitary," said an officer on duty at the high-security Nusakambangan jail, which lies off the southern coast of Java.
"Rather than being worried that he may escape, it has been decided to put him in the Nusakambangan penitentiary. It will be difficult to escape from there," Justice Minister Baharudin Lopa said. "And what is more important is that it will have an impact on corrupt officials and deter them from further corruption."
Trying and sentencing Hasan was no easy task. An initial sentence of two years was commuted by the court into house arrest, but the subsequent outrage prompted an appeals court to triple the sentence and move him directly to jail in Jakarta.
His mentor, Suharto, remains unsullied by any corruption conviction on the grounds of ill health. But Hasan's harsher treatment also shows Suharto can help him no longer. Hasan is also expected to pay back the amount deemed lost to the state.
One lawyer wondered yesterday if the transfer might be a favour to Hasan, given the fatal riots at Jakarta's Cipinang prison recently.
These were blamed on overcrowding, but inmates were also asking why they should be detained when higher profile criminals, such as Suharto's fugitive younger son, remain at large.
Meanwhile, Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti "Tutut" Hardiyanti Rukmana, and his half-brother Probosutedjo are suspects in two separate multi-million dollar graft cases.
Suharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, was sentenced to 18 months in jail for corruption in a land swap deal but remains on the run.