Chris McCall, Jakarta – Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra's ability until yesterday to evade the clutches of the law was as sure a sign as any that Indonesia had failed to put behind it the dark days of legal impunity for the rich and powerful.
And the Supreme Court's decision in October to overturn a corruption conviction against him, for many commentators, also ridiculed claimed attempts at judicial reform.
But a year after Hutomo went on the run, Indonesia's most wanted man was finally taken in by police in Jakarta.
City police chief Inspector General Sofyan Jacoeb hailed the arrest as the result of months of painstaking work. He ordered promotions for 25 officers involved. Police rejected claims from sceptics that it was an elaborate fix to save the playboy son of former president Suharto.
Hutomo, 39, jailed for 18 months last year over a land-swap scandal, is now also a suspect in a major murder investigation.
Police seized him in a late-afternoon raid on a house in the south of the city. Inspector Sofyan told a rowdy news briefing a few hours later that Hutomo was sleeping at the time on the first floor. He made no attempt to resist arrest, Inspector Sofyan said, and acted like a gentleman as officers took him in.
Looking pale and worn out, Hutomo sat in a T-shirt at his side and made no comment. Inspector Sofyan said Hutomo had handed the matter to his lawyer, Elza Syarief, and would clarify his situation at an appropriate time.
Police said the arrest came after two months of surveillance based on information from figures linked to Hutomo, plus phone taps and 10 days of monitoring the house. His legal status was a "suspect" and he was detained for the night by police.
The arrest brings to an end the nationwide manhunt. The feared favourite son of Indonesia's toppled strongman was turned into a political football by his flight, with two presidents urging police to pull out all stops to arrest him. A series of government officials hailed the arrest yesterday.
It started with a Supreme Court decision last year to sentence Hutomo to 18 months in jail over the land-swap scandal involving his firm, PT Goro Batara Sakti, and the state logistics agency Bulog. A cell was prepared for him in Jakarta's Cipinang jail and his partner, Ricardo Gelael, dutifully went to prison. But Hutomo had other ideas.
After a game of cat and mouse over his fate with former president Abdurrahman Wahid, Hutomo disappeared last November when Mr Wahid refused to issue a pardon.
Earlier this year, police posted wanted portraits of Hutomo as a bearded "Ibrahim" around Jakarta, after discovering documents they said showed Hutomo had tried to obtain false identity papers in that name. Two female associates were arrested and Hutomo was linked to a spate of bombings and the July gunning down of Supreme Court judge Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, one of a panel of judges that convicted him over the land-swap scandal.
Ironically, that conviction has since been controversially quashed. A few weeks ago the same Supreme Court that sent him to jail quashed the conviction through a judicial review.
But police yesterday said Hutomo was still considered a suspect in the judge's killing and firearms offences. Two men who have admitted carrying out the killing have said they did it on orders from Hutomo.
Antasari Azhar, the prosecutor who led the original case against Hutomo, last night said officials were still trying to have the quashing of the conviction overturned, on the basis that it was legally unsound.