Vaudine England, Jakarta – Prosecutors were deciding yesterday whether to arrest the youngest son of former president Suharto after a surprise ruling by the Supreme Court sentencing him to 18 months' jail on graft charges. Lawyers for Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra said they were planning an appeal against the decision, which reversed a lower court acquittal last October.
Hutomo and business associate Ricardo Gelael were originally cleared of corruption charges relating to a 1995 land deal with state logistics agency Bulog because of a lack of evidence. But the Supreme Court, currently being reconstituted by President Abdurrahman Wahid, chose to look again at the case and decided last Friday to announce Hutomo's guilt and sentence him to jail. The verdict was only made public on Tuesday.
Even though the sentencing was unlikely to lead smoothly to the jailing of Hutomo, political machinations lay behind the timing of the announcement.
The week before, Mr Wahid ordered police to arrest Hutomo in connection with the recent spate of bomb attacks allegedly connected with his father's trial. But police refused to detain the gambling playboy, citing a lack of evidence. Mr Wahid then sacked police chief General Rusdiharjo.
A few days later, Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman hinted that the struggle against Hutomo was not over, adding that other ways were being sought to deliver the message that the Government was serious about prosecuting the Suharto family.
The Supreme Court move does have legal basis, unlike Mr Wahid's earlier arrest order against Hutomo over the bombings in which the executive arm of government sought to influence the theoretically separate judiciary.
"It's true that in the UK and the US, once someone has been acquitted of charges, there can be no going back to review the case," said a legal expert. "But in Indonesia and in other jurisdictions, a higher court such as the Supreme Court can overturn anything that has happened in a lower court ... nothing is ever final here until someone is dead."
The lawyer said the Supreme Court comprised more than 40 judges and that hearings usually involved three of them. The key to winning a favourable judgment was to influence the choice of judges, usually by the payment of large bribes. One of the two Supreme Court judges currently being tried for corruption by the Attorney-General's special Joint Investigation Team to Eradicate Corruption, Marnis Kahar, was among those who had earlier exonerated Hutomo. Local reports pointed out that when Hutomo was sentenced, Kahar was absent.
"I don't think anything just happens by chance in the courts here," said a veteran foreign lawyer. "This sentencing is intended to send a very strong statement to Tommy that he had better watch his back. But I'd be very surprised to see him behind bars any time soon. This is quite a transparent bargaining process."
Another observer described the to-and-froing between Hutomo and Mr Wahid's Government as "a bidding war". "Tommy [allegedly] bought the judges first, and then the Government threatened and changed some judges. So now it's up to Tommy to up the ante," the observer said. "Unfortunately, I think Tommy's pockets are deeper than the Government's."