Adi wants extradition treaty with S'pore

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Indonesia wants Singapore to sign an extradition treaty so Jakarta can bring back "economic criminals", Minister of Cooperatives Adi Sasono was quoted on Thursday as saying.

"We want Singapore to sign an extradition treaty to bring back to Indonesia economic criminals seeking refuge there," Adi was quoted as saying in an interview with Singapore's Straits Times newspaper. He did not identify anyone by name or define what he meant by "economic criminals".

Soeharto, who stepped down as president on May 21, is widely accused of enriching his family and friends and his wealth is being investigated.

Adi said Singapore had to be "not too business-minded in its dealings with Indonesia".

"It needs to see us as something more than an economic entity...I look at Singapore as being more than a supermarket."

Adi said while he thanked Singapore for its humanitarian assistance and investment in a bilateral gas line project, "there are so many conditions attached that they make it impossible to say they are helping us".

Singapore has offered US$5 billion in a bilateral trade financing scheme to Indonesia, but Indonesian officials have said negotiations were frozen because Singapore had imposed terms that were very hard for Indonesia to accept.

Singapore has also signed an $8 billion gas sales agreement with Indonesia and plans a $500 million, 640 km-long gas supply pipeline to connect Indonesia's West Natuna Sea gas field to Singapore.

Adi said Singapore had to understand there was a younger leadership emerging in Indonesia and a "new Indonesia in the making".

"There won't be a Liem Sioe Liong or Anthony Salim or those connected to Soeharto to give concessions in Bintan anymore, for example. Indonesia will change and Singapore has to adjust to that fact."

He was referring to two businessmen close to Soeharto and Bintan, an Indonesian island just off Singapore which has been a major focus of development.