Jakarta – An Indonesian anti-graft watchdog has demanded that the youngest son of former president Suharto return 255 million dollars which it charged he had embezzled through his clove marketing agency, a report said Tuesday.

The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) filed its petition to members of parliament Commission V, which deals with trade and industry affairs, the daily Kompas said.

Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra – who set up the Suharto-appointed monopoly Clove Trading Board (BPPC) in 1993 – had to return the money to the poor clove farmers he got it from, ICW coordinator Teten Masduki was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

He said BPPC had collected most of the 225 million dollars during its five-year operation by making the farmers pay back-breaking contributions into three funds.

"Even though BPPC was disbanded in June 30 1998, they are still responsible for returning the 1.9 trillion rupiah to the clove farmers," Masduki said. "The earnings made by BPPC were the source of the farmers' frustation ... and one of them had cut off his own hands because of it," he added.

During the five-year operation, Kompas said the agency was allegedly involved in a wide range of corrupt practices which misallocated the farmers' welfare and profit-sharing funds.

Teten said besides Tommy and his father, several ministers who then served under Suharto should also be held responsible for setting up the BPPC. He named former trade and industry minister Tunky Aribowo, former finance minister J.B. Sumarlin, two former cooperative ministers and current MP Nurdin Halid, who then headed the national village-level cooperatives board.

The head lawyer for the ICW, Iskandar Sonhaji, said Suharto has "abused his power" by issuing the presidential decree which empowered Tommy to set up the agency in 1993. "The implemention and rules stipulated in the presidential decree number 20, and the presidential instruction number one were a form of abuse of power by Suharto and it can be categorized as a criminal act of corruption," he said. The "substance and material" stipulated by the decrees had conflicted with the constitution, Sohaji added.

Cigarette industry executives then said that they were unofficially required to buy their cloves from a company controlled PT Kencana Cengkeh Nasional (KCN), a company controlled by Tommy, to be able to obtain excise stamps. Excise stamps are required on all packages of cigarettes for sale in Indonesia, where most cigarettes are clove-flavored, and industry sources had claimed they were being pressured to deal with KCN to obtain stamps.