Businessman wants police to investigate assault
JAKARTA (JP): A businessman has asked the police to immediately summon for questioning three executives of Panin Bank whom he believes were involved in his being kidnapped and beaten last month.
The businessman is Sulaiman Iskandar Ramli, better known as Han Seng, and he is being represented by lawyer Bambang Hartono of the law firm Rudy Lontoh & Associates.
Bambang identified the three Panin's bank officials as Vice President Gunawan, Account Officer Lie Mei Lin and Director Chalid Latief.
The lawyer said he also wanted the police to summon Haryanto Latief, Mei Lin's brother who -- according to Han Seng -- is the one who actually received a disputed loan worth Rp 3.6 billion (US$1.6 million) from the bank, which he says is what lay behind the beating.
The alleged kidnapping and beating of Han Seng by a group of about 20 people, including a police officer, is said to have taken place at his house on May 12. It was apparently intended to extract repayment of a debt which a private bank claims the businessman owes to it.
Han Seng claimed that the group came to his house at 11 p.m. and proceeded to hit and kick him. He said the men then dragged him to a van where the police officer, whom he identified as Lt. Col. Alfon from the Economic Crime Investigation Directorate of the National Police Headquarters, was waiting.
According to Han Seng, the men continued to abuse him in the parking area of the Satria Mandala military museum on Jl. Gatot Subroto, South Jakarta.
Han Seng said that the men had warned him not to report the incident to the police.
Several days after the incident, Han Seng, through his lawyer Bambang, reported the case to city detectives, who later questioned a number of the bank's executives.
Early in June Crime Investigation Directorate Secretary Lt. Col. Primanto announced that the city police had detained "more than one" suspect in connection with case but refused to give details.
Primanto neither confirmed nor denied the rumor, circulating widely, that police and military personnel were involved in the incident.
According to Han Seng, the incident had something to do with a Rp 3.6 billion loan from the Panin Bank in 1990.
He said that the money had actually been borrowed by an acquaintance of his who worked at the bank, Lie Mei Lin. He said that his name, rather than Lie Mei Lin's, had been used in the loan transaction because the bank's regulations did not permit an employee to apply for a loan.
He said that under an agreement between the two, Han Seng obtained the Rp 3.6 million loan from the bank but later gave the money to Lay Mei Lin, who then handed it over to her brother, Hariyanto Latief, who agreed to repay the money to the bank.
Three years later, Han Seng said, the bank asked him to repay the loan. Han Seng then told Latief, who had used the money to import luxury cars, to repay the money to the bank. But Latief declared himself bankrupt.
On the basis of the loan agreement, the bank kept asking Han Seng to repay the loan and, finally, hired debt collectors to exert pressure on him.
Amir Syamsuddin, lawyer for one of the executives, said recently that Panin Bank knew nothing about documents other than the loan agreement between the Panin Bank, the creditor, and Han Seng, the debtor.
The lawyer also denied that Mei Lin was an officer of the bank. Further, Amir denied that the bank had been involved in the kidnapping and beating of Han Seng, although he conceded that Panin Bank did routinely hire people to encourage debtors to repay their loans.
"But, if those people coerce and beat the debtors it is not our responsibility, because our agreement with them does not ask them to do that," he said. (bsr)