Adi wants extradition treaty with S'pore

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.