Attorney General's office presents Towil dossier

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)