Comedy of errors
Comedy of errors
Three weeks after the dramatic disappearance of Hutomo "Tommy"
Mandala Putra, former president Soeharto's youngest son who was
sentenced to 18 months in prison for corruption, the hope that
police will be able to track him down any time soon and that the
principle of equality before the law will be upheld appears to be
dimming rather than increasing by the day.
Indeed, as the time continues to fly by and the police, to all
appearances, go all out to find the fugitive billionaire
felon, the case appears to be gradually assuming all the
characteristics of a good comedy, rather than a drama or mystery.
One could, of course, question the use at this point of noting
that all of this could have been avoided had the authorities
treated Tommy from the beginning not as a privileged super-rich
and powerful business tycoon, but rather as an ordinary citizen
who had been found guilty of a crime and sentenced accordingly by
a court of justice.
It must nevertheless be remembered that the longer the case is
left dangling with no hope of a solution in sight, the more the
government of President Abdurrahman Wahid stands to lose its
already tattered credibility and the more the nation is faced
with the bleak prospect of having to live with a never-ending
crisis.
As may be recalled, Tommy was formally pronounced a suspect by
the South Jakarta District Court on Feb. 2, 1999, together with
Beddu Amang, the former head of the State Logistics Agency
(Bulog), and businessman Ricardo Gelael, and the case opened two
days later.
Beddu Amang was acquitted on a technicality and his case has
not been heard of since. Tommy and Ricardo were also exonerated
for lack of evidence, but the prosecutor, Fachmi, appealed and a
Supreme Court panel chaired by M. Syafiuddin Kartasasmita
reversed the decision.
Ricardo filed for a presidential pardon, which was however
refused. He accepted the decision as calmly as can be expected
from a man finding himself in such a situation. Tommy, however,
proved to be a much harder nut to crack.
Not content with just filing a plea for a pardon with the
President, Tommy at the same time appealed for a judicial review
of his case. Both petitions were rejected and so, one might at
least expect, the way was open for the judicial authorities to
arrest him -- irrespective, of course, of his position in the
community.
Instead, the public has been a witness to a series of events
that would have been comically absurd, were it not for the
implications that are involved.
Tommy arranged to meet President Abdurrahman Wahid at the
Borobudur Hotel in Jakarta -- in private, if not in secret.
Whether media reports that more meetings took place subsequently
are true is something that must await official confirmation. Even
so, any delay in confirming or denying such reports will only
serve to damage the President's credibility even more.
Given the way the public's mind works, such mysterious doings
can only further feed the public's suspicion that something fishy
is going on and that some kind of secret deal is probably being
hammered out for Tommy's benefit. How else can one explain the
odd fact that the state's intelligence apparatus -- always so
quick in the past to uncover plots and arrest dissidents -- has
been proven helpless in tracking down a mere Tommy Soeharto?
In the meantime, the police have been making a big show of
questioning Tommy's family and combing the city to find the
fugitive. Having apparently failed to find Tommy in the homes of
the "Cendana (Soeharto's) Family", police are widening the scope
of their hunt to include the homes of his ex-girlfriend, former
actress Maya Rumantir, and even that of his in-laws.
What the authorities will come up with next is anybody's
guess. Our own guess is that the public will have to endure some
more of the same for at least a few more days until one of the
two sides in the current game of cat and mouse gives up. In the
meantime, it is the public which must pay the price for the
police's bungling performance in this affair.