Cipinang prison gets a new chief

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Justice installed yesterday a new chief warden at Cipinang penitentiary in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding the escape of businessman Eddy Tansil this month.

Subari, with a long track record of managing correctional facilities in Karawang, West Java, and Lubuklinggau, South Sumatra, was installed yesterday in a ceremony led by Mohammad C. Alamsyah Boer, the head of the Jakarta office of the Ministry of Justice.

He replaced Mintardjo, who was removed on May 7, three days after Tansil walked out of jail 18 years ahead of schedule.

Mintardjo was not present at the ceremony. He is currently under police investigation but initial indications are that he was not directly responsible for the jailbreak. However, 20 of his staff have been named by police as suspects in the conspiracy to allow Tansil to escape.

Alamsyah in his speech at the installation ceremony underlined the two main tasks of wardens: to keep the inmates securely locked up, and to supervise their rehabilitation process.

The two tasks, he said, are linked. "If the penitentiary is not secure, you cannot rehabilitate the prisoners."

"Even the tiniest negligence and carelessness can be fatal to the image of Indonesian justice," he said.

Subari, like Mintardjo, graduated from the Academy of Rehabilitation Science in Jakarta in 1969.

When asked by reporters how he would make sure there was no second scandal of this type, he answered that he would first have to talk to his subordinates.

Tansil was serving a 20-year jail term when he escaped. He was convicted of corruption in 1994 for embezzling Rp 1.3 trillion ($620 million) from state-owned Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo). A massive manhunt is now underway, and the authorities have contacted 119 foreign governments for help following suggestions that he had already fled the country. (16)