Court asked to continue Pande's trial

Court asked to continue Pande's trial

JAKARTA (JP): Prosecutor Tarwo Hadi Sadjuri asked the South
Jakarta District Court on Friday to continue the trial of Pande
Lubis, one of the defendants in the high profile Bank Bali
corruption scandal.

Pande was the former deputy chairman of the Indonesian Bank
Restructuring Agency (IBRA), which has been established to
control and manage nationalized and closed banks and debt
defaulters.

"I've earlier stated that Pande was one of a number of
officials who attended the Feb. 11, 1999 meeting at Hotel Mulia
in Central Jakarta, which discussed measures to accelerate Bank
Bali's loan disbursement from IBRA," Tarwo told the hearing,
presided over by judge I Gede Putra.

He said Pande had violated among others, Article 55 of the
Criminal Code, which states that the guilty party is the one who
committed the crime, or the one who ordered out the crime, or who
was an accomplice in the crime.

"Pande was present in a meeting, where some men had directly
or indirectly tried to persuade certain officials to accelerate
Bank Bali's loan disbursement from IBRA. I appeal to you (judges)
not to halt questioning on defendant Pande Lubis," Tarwo said.

The Feb. 11 meeting was allegedly attended by Central Bank
Governor Sjahril Sabirin, then state minister of investment and
state enterprises development Tanri Abeng, Pande himself, former
Bank Bali deputy chairman Firman Soetjahja, executives of PT Era
Giat Prima (EGP) Setya Novanto and Djoko S. Tjandra.

Judge Gede Putra said on Friday that the court would make its
decision on the matter on June 22.

The scandal originated from the failure of three private banks
-- Bank BDNI, Bank Tiara and Bank Umum Nasional -- to repay a
total of Rp 904 billion (US$108.9 million) to Bank Bali, a debt
which remained until the three were closed down by the central
bank in late 1998 due to poor financial records.

Bank Bali then asked the government for the loan disbursement
as it had been put under a restructuring program.

The bank then paid Rp 546 billion to PT EGP as commission to
help recoup its Rp 904 billion in interbank loans from closed
banks under the supervision of IBRA.

On Monday, businessman Arung Gauk Jarre told the district
court that he had "no idea whatsoever" about the commission paid
to PT EGP for its assistance in recouping Bank Bali's money.

Arung testified as a witness in the case.

"On June 8, 1999, I received Rp 47.3 billion from Djoko S.
Tjandra, which I had requested as a loan. But I had no idea that
it was the money from that particular agreement between Bank Bali
and PT EGP," Arung told the court on Monday.

"I had asked for the loan to develop my markisa (passion
fruit) business in South Sulawesi. It was to be repaid in full
six months from June 8 last year."

He added that by August 1999 however, Djoko had written two
letters to him, dated Aug. 6 and Aug. 16, requesting an immediate
transfer of the money to Bank Bali's escrow account.

"I returned the money by Aug. 18 last year, when I started
reading about the scandal in the newspapers and suspected that
the money I borrowed could have been linked to the scandal," he
said. (ylt)