As the deadline passes

As the deadline passes

Five days have passed since the city police announced an
ultimatum for former president Soeharto's fugitive son, Hutomo
"Tommy" Mandala Putra, to surrender or face "stern measures" for
escaping an 18-month jail sentence. The youngest son of the
fallen dictator was jailed last year for causing losses to the
state in a Rp 95.4 billion (US$11.2 million) land-exchange deal
in 1995 with the State Logistics Agency. He scorned the verdict
and in November went into hiding.

The police subsequently hunted down the outlaw but the manhunt
was only intensified early this week after officers found out
that he was alleged to have been involved in the recent murder of
Supreme Court Justice M. Syafiuddin Kartasasta. Syafiuddin was
one of the judges who rejected Tommy's appeal against the lower
court's 18-month jail sentence. Moreover, police have also
connected Tommy allegedly with the bomb explosions in various
parts of Java lately.

The seemingly disorganized manhunt included the distribution
of what the police said was a photo of him in disguise as his
alias "Ibrahim", and a search of the houses of his relatives.
Since Thursday evening the police also deployed hundreds of
sharpshooters to a large number of areas where it was believed
the convict could have been hiding. But until Friday Tommy's
whereabouts remained a great mystery. On the other hand, Tommy's
once high-profile sisters have claimed to be in the dark, just
like the officers. It all sounds like a cruel hoax.

However, a recent report said the police heard from one of the
murder suspects that last month Tommy celebrated his birthday in
the house of one of his siblings in the area where the Soeharto
family members live. It was well-attended by his relatives. In
the gathering, police claimed, the accomplice submitted to Tommy
a chart and an itinerary of the proposed assassination of the
judge.

Tommy's alleged presence at the party shows that the police's
inability to find him has become a matter of national shame. When
Tommy's older sister Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, who is also known
as Tutut, went to Jakarta Police Headquarters on Friday to tell
officers that she would hand over her brother for arrest but
needed more time, the police said they could not tolerate any
further delay. The police seemed convinced that they would be
able to catch the outlaw. Or perhaps they were simply "waiting
for Godot"?

The question for the nation now is what made Tommy so fearless
in challenging law enforcers? The first reason seemed to be his
former-dictator father's achievement in taking the law into his
own hands unopposed, for three decades. Tommy also believed that
the police still had neither the guts nor the ability to arrest
him. Second, president Abdurrahman Wahid had set the worst
example of disrespect for the law by inviting Tommy to a lunch at
a luxury hotel in Central Jakarta while the convict was seeking
clemency from him.

This shows that the present government must start a nationwide
campaign right now to establish the supremacy of the law and to
make Indonesians a law-abiding people.