Jakarta – Court officials said yesterday that they had not lost the documentation of a Supreme Court decision ordering a fugitive son of former Indonesian President Suharto to pay nearly US$300 million in back taxes, as had been alleged by a minister. 'We sent the document back to the Jakarta state administrative court in April. So it is not missing,' said a spokesman for the Supreme Court.

Finance Minister Rizal Ramli said last week the government wanted to collect the 3.2 trillion rupiah (S$546 million) in unpaid taxes from Hutomo 'Tommy' Mandala Putra, Suharto's youngest son, but that the letter ordering the payment had disappeared. A Supreme Court statement also said the head of the Jakarta administrative court had denied the document was missing and had shown it to be in the court's possession.

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed last year by Tommy's automotive company, PT Timor Putra Nasional, against the administrative court's ruling obliging his firm to pay the taxes. The tax dispute between the government and Timor Putra arose when the government demanded the company pay import duties and other taxes on the Timor cars it imported from South Korea. Timor Putra was initially exempted from the duties and taxes.

Tommy, a 38-year-old millionaire businessman, has been on the run since November 3 of last year when he failed to turn himself in to serve an 18-month jail sentence for graft. Family friends say he has remained in Jakarta.