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.