Business tycoon Bob Hasan to face trial
Business tycoon Bob Hasan to face trial
JAKARTA (JP): Timber tycoon Mohamad "Bob" Hasan will face
trial for corruption this month as the case dossiers will be
submitted to Central Jakarta District Court next week, a
prosecutor said on Thursday.
Andi Syarifuddin, assistant of special crimes investigations
at the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office, said general prosecutors led
by Arnold Angkouw would first study the 8,000-page dossier.
"The prosecutors will probably file the case next week," he
told journalists at his office.
To ensure his presence at the trial, Hasan, a former golfing
buddy of former president Soeharto, was put under 20-day state
arrest on Thursday.
He is currently being detained at the Attorney General's
Office compound.
"The public will blame prosecutors if we fail to present Bob
to the court," Andi said.
Prosecutors on Thursday also handed the dossiers of the
corruption case involving Hasan's company PT Mapindo Parama to
the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office. It is alleged the company caused
some US$75.62 million in losses to the state.
Accompanied by his lawyer Augustinus Hutajulu and long-time
friend Andi Darussalam Tabusala, Hasan, who is currently under
house arrest as a suspect in another corruption case, refused to
comment on his new arrest status.
"I will yield to the instruction," he briefly said.
Augustinus, however, blasted the detention, saying that his
client had been cooperative throughout the investigation.
The case centers around a $87-million government project to
perform aerial mapping and airborne radar imaging of forestry
resources in the country. Hasan, who was chair of the Indonesian
Forest Concessionaires Association (APHI), awarded the project to
PT Mapindo.
The prosecutors found that Hasan, who briefly served as
minister of trade and industry, violated the contract, and that
the procedures and the results of the mapping were not in
accordance with the requirements of the contract.
The corruption, which is believed to have taken place between
1989 and 1999, caused an estimated $168 million in losses to
APHI, prosecutors allege. (bby)