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Police Search In Vain For Suharto's Son On Islands Off Jakarta
JAKARTA (AFP) - Police on Friday scoured a chain of tiny resort islands off Jakarta Bay for the fugitive youngest son of former Indonesian president Suharto but came up empty-handed.
But police spokesman Brigadier General Saleh Saaf said police believed Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, who has been on the run for a week, was still hiding somewhere in the Indonesian capital.
"We could not find him on Pulau Seribu," Saaf said. "Sooner or later we will find him, but you know it takes time. Jakarta is very large."
Tommy, a 38-year-old business magnate and multi-millionaire, was declared a fugitive Tuesday after he failed to surrender to authorities by midnight on Monday to serve an 18-month jail term for corruption.
President Abdurrahman Wahid had rejected his appeal for a presidential pardon the previous week and police first sought to arrest him at his home last Friday, November 3.
The state Antara news agency quoted Wahid as saying he had rejected Tommy's request to erect a private enclosure at his own cost within the walls of Jakarta's Cipinang jail, where a cell had been prepared for him, and bring his own bodyguards with him.
"He has also asked to be allowed to bring eight bodyguards who will masquerade as prisoners," Wahid told a gathering of Muslims in East Java town of Pamekasan on Thursday.
Police and prosecutors say they have searched in vain for Tommy at his own house and the homes of his siblings, after defense lawyers used tactic after tactic to keep him out of jail until time began to run out.
Tommy's lawyers have said he refused to go to jail because his life was in danger after anonymous callers threatened to kill him once he was behind bars.
Wahid also urged Tommy to turn himself in and serve the sentence handed down to him by the Supreme Court, which found him guilty of corruption in a fraudulent land deal with the state food agency.
"I call on Tommy to give himself up immediately so he can be sent to the Cipinang jail. If he finds the situation in Cipinang prison is not safe for him in the morning, he may move to another place in the afternoon," he said, without elaborating.
The surrender plea was repeated by national police chief General Suroyo Bimantoro on the private SCTV station on Friday.
Calling Tommy's behavior "not so respectable", Bimantoro urged Tommy's family to persuade him to give himself up.
"Don't be a fugitive ... I think the family should encourage him to hand himself over to police," he said.
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