Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Indonesia has been dealt a blow by Britain's highest court of appeal, with a ruling in favour of convicted murderer Tommy Suharto getting his hands on Euro 36 million ($61.7m) in a Guernsey bank account.
Prosecutors in Jakarta were yesterday scrambling to produce evidence that would keep a bank-ordered freeze on the cash, which was deposited by the son of the late dictator Suharto soon after his father fled power in early 1998.
Tommy, whose real name is Hutomo Mandala Putra, has been trying since 2002 to access the money, which was frozen by the BNP Paribas bank on suspicion of being the profits of corruption.
Yesterday's win in the Queen's Privy Council came just days after Tommy, 47, mounted a surprise bid for the leadership of Golkar, the party that was crucial to the late autocrat's 32 years in power.
That move was signalled as an attempted return by elements of Suharto's "New Order" administration, with Tommy claiming when he announced the bid last week that he had "a moral obligation to help advance the party, which was founded and built by my father".
Golkar crashed spectacularly in recent parliamentary and presidential elections, winning just 107 seats in the 560-seat house in the former, and barely 12 per cent of the popular vote in the latter.
With Golkar's candidate in the presidential poll, Jusuf Kalla, certain to be rolled at a national congress in October, Tommy's throwing his hat in the leadership ring presents a serious challenge to the two party heavy-weights also interested in the job: billionaire businessman Aburizal Bakrie and media tycoon Surya Paloh.
The question of whether Tommy has the finances to buy the party machine's support has now been given extra import with the Privy Council decision, which was made on June 10 but revealed only yesterday.
Senior prosecutor Edwin P. Situmorang admitted at a hastily called press conference that the details of the ruling had been a surprise, conceding that "frankly, our lawyers haven't told us anything".
But Mr Situmorang said his department was racing to gather material that would enable Guernsey authorities or the French-owned bank to continue freezing the money.
Tommy originally sued the bank in 2006 for refusing to release the funds he had deposited in its Guernsey branch, with the court there eventually ruling that so long as Indonesian prosecutors could prove he was under investigation in Indonesia, the bank's stance was legal.
Tommy had at that point just left jail after serving four years of a 10-year sentence for ordering the murder of Supreme Court judge Syafiuddin Kartasasmita.
Kartasasmita had sentenced Tommy to 18 months' jail in a corruption case involving one of the businessman's companies and the state logistics agency, known as Bulog.
But with the resolution last year of the original Bulog corruption case, Tommy once again appealed to the Guernsey court for his money, winning the appeal in January. That ruling prompted the Attorney-General's Privy Council action in March this year.
A disappointed Mr Situmorang said yesterday he was hopeful of a freeze on the funds.
"There is still data on corruption relating to Tommy which is developing in Indonesia, still at the investigative stage," he said. "Related to this, (we) are sounding out the existence of a mutual legal assistance agreement with (Guernsey) prosecutors."
He said prosecutors had sent details "actually one month ago" to Guernsey to keep the funds frozen regardless of Indonesia's legal outcome in the appeal. So far the funds freeze was continuing, he said.
Tommy's lawyer, Otto Cornelis Kaligis, refused to answer phone and SMS queries yesterday.