Attorney General's office presents Towil dossier
JAKARTA (JP): The South Jakarta District Court yesterday received the dossier of Towil Heryoto, one of the four former Bapindo directors suspected of involvement in the Rp 1.3 trillion scandal at the government-owned bank.
Towil's trial promises to be even more spectacular than those of the first two defendants because three former cabinet ministers are slated to give testimony of the extent of their roles in the scandal.
The three are Sudomo, former coordinating minister of political affairs and security, J.B. Sumarlin (former finance minister) and Nasrudin Sumintapura (former junior finance minister). All three still hold high government posts, respectively as chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council (DPA), chairman of the Supreme Audit Board and DPA member.
The trial is expected to commence in mid-July.
Towil's trial follows those of Eddy Tansil, the owner of the Golden Key Group to whom the loans were extended, and Maman Suparman, formerly deputy manager of Bapindo's Jakarta branch. Maman is being tried in the same court while Tansil's case is being heard at the Central Jakarta District Court. Both of these trials are now reaching their closing stages.
Three other former Bapindo directors are still being questioned by the Attorney General's office and their dossiers are expected to be presented to the court soon. They are Syahrizal, Subekti Ismaun and Bambang Kuntjoro.
Towil will be charged with the 1971 anti-corruption law which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. As the bank's director of credit in 1989, he is believed to have played a major role in approving the loans to Tansil.
Heading the government's prosecution team will be Taslim Hasyim while Towil has appointed Rudy Lontoh of the leading Rudy Lontoh and Denny Kailimang law firm to defend him.
Meanwhile, at Tansil's trial yesterday, the court sought to establish how much of the money had been transferred by Tansil to the personal accounts of his close relatives.
But of the six relatives subpoenaed yesterday, only one, brother-in-law Na Boen Eng, turned up.
Na, who is the older brother of Tansil's wife, admitted that at one stage Tansil transferred Rp 1.8 billion into his personal account at Bank Umum Servitia.
Na said he never bothered to ask Tansil about the source of the money since he thought that Tansil was wealthy enough to afford giving away such a huge sum.
The money had been returned to Tansil, he said.
But chief prosecutor Lukman Bachmid pointed out that bank records showed that Na had only returned Rp 600 million.
The government has already confiscated several buildings and plots of land, some of them registered under the names of Tansil's close relatives.
The court yesterday ruled that those relatives who ignored court subpoenas had waived all claims to the property.
The prosecutors yesterday also urged the court not to be influenced by the arrival of $16 million worth of equipment and machinery ordered by Golden Key's affiliate PT Graha Swakarsa Prima from Lucky Engineering of South Korea.
They said that the purchase had been financed by Bapindo's letters of credit which are not part of the dossier against Tansil and therefore were not relevant to the case.
Tansil's lawyers have asked for a court ruling to determine the ownership of the cargo, now on its way to the port of Banten near the location of Tansil's huge petrochemical project in Cilegon, West Java. (05)