Court date looms for Soeharto's half-brother

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.