Lindsay Murdoch – The hunt for Tommy Suharto, the fugitive son of Indonesia's disgraced former president, has turned into high farce. Tommy is demanding that jail authorities build him a special suite inside Jakarta's high-security Cipinang jail.

And officials have apparently agreed to build the facilities as long as 38-year-old Tommy first gives himself up and starts serving an 18-month sentence over a corrupt land deal.

Lawyer Nudirman Munir, who on Wednesday quit Tommy's legal team, said Tommy, a one-time womaniser estimated to control a $US800 million fortune, was seeking special treatment because he believes that he is a victim of a legal conspiracy and his conviction was unjust. He has been on the run since last Friday.

Tommy had earlier demanded that bodyguards be allowed to accompany him in jail, saying he feared he would be killed by other prisoners.

But Tempo magazine has reported that the Suharto family long ago made arrangements to protect Tommy in Cipinang, entrusting the job to the jail's godfather or boss, a convicted murderer named Agiono. "If someone disturbs him [Tommy], if there is someone who offends him, I will hit that person," the magazine quoted Agiono as saying.

The jail is notorious for giving special privileges to prisoners who have money to pay. Former and serving prisoners say that mobile telephones, restaurant food and outside "holidays" are common. Jail officials have set aside a 12-metre-square cell for Tommy which has a cement platform as a bed and a squat toilet. It is in a block secure from most other prisoners.

The head of one of Indonesia's biggest conglomerates, which he is accused of building through special favors while his father was in power, Tommy can officially bring to the jail a thin mattress, a small television set, a fan, a radio cassette and reading material. While the jail food is porridge with a boiled egg or salted fish, there are stalls and canteens that sell food to prisoners.