Court date looms for Soeharto's half-brother
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Business tycoon Probosutedjo, the half-brother of former president Soeharto, will soon face trial over a corruption scandal causing Rp 44.4 billion (US$4.9 million) in state losses, a report said on Thursday.
Spokesman for the Attorney General's Office Barman Zahir said Probosutedjo, the director of timber company PT Menara Hutan Buana, and the case file would be handed over to the Jakarta Prosecutors' Office next week.
"We are now examining the indictment to make sure it has no flaws," he told reporters at his office, quoting Tarwo Hadi Sadjuri, assistant for special crimes to the head of the Jakarta Provincial Prosecutors' Office, who is also in charge of the prosecution.
Probosutedjo is suspected of exaggerating the size of PT Menara Hutan's industrial timber estate in South Kalimantan in an attempt to obtain a zero-interest loan derived from the government's reforestation funds it received in November 1996.
PT Menara Hutan had claimed it managed a 86,000-hectare estate, one year after its operation started, in order to apply for a Rp 144.4 billion loan.
But the 1996 survey reports made by the National Survey and Charting Coordination Agency (Bakosurtanal), which was presented as evidence, revealed that the company only had a 50,263-hectare estate.
The investigation found that the loan given to PT Menara was equal to the amount needed for the management of a 71,000-hectare estate and that the company merely deserved a Rp 105.5 billion loan.
The investigation accused PT Menara of having swindled Rp 38.8 billion of the loan and another Rp 5.6 billion, also derived from the reforestation funds, for other purposes instead of for the management the timber estate, adding up to Rp 44.4 billion in state losses.
The investigators will also prosecute timber consultant, PT Betras Abadi Sejahtera, in an indictment separate from Probosutedjo's for helping PT Menara Hutan in manipulating the size of the latter's timber estate.