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Suharto's Daughter Named Suspect In Oil Pipeline Project Markup
JAKARTA, Feb 17 (News Agencies) - The eldest daughter of former Indonesian strongman Suharto has been named a suspect in a multi-million dollar corruption case involving state oil company Pertamina, reports said Saturday.
The attorney general's office said late Friday that enough evidence had been gathered to implicate businesswoman Siti "Tutut" Hardiyanti Rukmana in connection with a 320-kilometer (199 mile) pipeline project in Java.
"Our investigation has led us to name her a suspect in the case," a spokesman for the attorney general's office, Mulyoharjo, was quoted by the Jakarta Post as telling journalists.
The prosecutors' move marked the second time since Suharto's fall in 1998 the state has managed slap the suspect tag - meaning a trial - for corruption on one of the former dictator's six billionaire children.
The youngest of the six, Humtomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra is currently on the run from the law after being sentenced to 18 months in jail in connection with a land swap deal with state food distribution agency Bulog.
Mulyoharjo said Tutut headed a consortium that was awarded the pipeline project in 1987.
But when the project was cancelled in 1992 her PT Triharsa Bimanusa Tunggal (TBT) company invoiced Pertamina $36.69 million for what it said was 14% of the contract value.
Pertamina made the payment to TBT in 1993.
"It turned out they had conducted only 6.4% of the work, not 14%," Mulyoharjo said, adding that the amount that should have been paid was $14 million, leaving the state with a loss of $22 million.
Earlier on Friday, Tutut, whose diversified business interests include toll roads, failed to show up for questioning at the attorney general's office, pleading illness.
"Her lawyer told us that their client was sick and had asked for the questioning session to be rescheduled," Mulyoharjo said then.
On Wednesday, prosecutors grilled another of the Suharto children, Sigit Haryoyudanto, in connection with a second corruption case involving Pertamina, an alleged $113 million mark-up of the Balongan oil refinery project in 1989.
Tutut's status in that case is as a witness.
Pertamina built the refinery, in the Indramayu district of West Java, between 1990 and 1995 with a consortium led by Foster Wheeler of Britain as the main contractor.
Sigit, along with Tutut and two other business partners, are believed to have pressured Pertamina - by using their father's influence on then-mining and energy minister Ginanjar Kartasasmita - into taking up Foster Wheeler's offer.
In exchange for paving the way for the deal, the four along with Kartasasmita, allegedly received cash payments from Foster Wheeler.
Sigit's lawyer, Juan Felix Tampubolon, said later Sigit had "no knowledge or whatsoever" of the Balongan case.
Though tightening the noose on the family's wealth - estimated in 1999 by the U.S. magazine Time at $15 billion - prosecutors have failed to bring Suharto himself to trial.
Judges dismissed a multi-million dollar corruption case against Suharto in September 2000. Although the High Court overturned that ruling in November, he has yet to appear in court.
Suharto scored another victory last week when the Indonesian Supreme Court ruled the 79-year-old former army general - who has suffered two minor strokes and other ailments - could not be tried until his health recovered.
The former dictator has been accused of stealing $571 million from the state by funneling money from huge tax-free charity foundations he ran into the businesses of family and friends.
One of Suharto's closest cronies, timber tycoon Muhammad "Bob" Hasan, is serving two years imprisonment for causing losses to the state of $244 million.
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