Court orders release of files in Britain-Indonesia arms probe
Court orders release of files in Britain-Indonesia arms probe
Agence France-Presse, London
A British court has ordered the release of files disclosing
payments by a leading British arms company to the daughter of
former Indonesian president Soeharto, the Guardian newspaper said
on Thursday.
The High Court of Justice ruled that the Guardian should be
allowed access to the court file containing witness statements by
the then chief executive of Alvis, a tank manufacturer based in
Coventry, it said.
The Guardian has reported allegations that Alvis paid 16.5
million pounds (US$31.9 million) in bribes to Soeharto's eldest
daughter to secure a 160 million pound sale of Scorpion tanks in
the mid-1990s which were then used for internal repression.
Alvis attempted to keep the documents secret, but the high
court eventually ruled that the newspaper could have copies of
the material, the newspaper said.
The witness statements formed part of the evidence in an
earlier, unreported case in which a former consultant to Alvis,
Chan U Seek, claimed six million pounds commission on the tanks
sale.
A large number of internal company memos were disclosed in the
Chan hearing, including one from the chief executive referring to
the payments to president Soeharto's daughter as "a tax," the
Guardian said.
But before the case could be reported, Alvis unexpectedly
settled, with a confidentiality agreement that nothing further
was to be said about the case, the Guardian said.
The witness statements handed over Wednesday, and published on
the Guardian's website (www.guardian.co.uk), reveal that Alvis
executives tried for years to secure the support of influential
people close to the government and the army, it said.
Eventually they were able to hire president Soeharto's eldest
daughter, known as Siti Hardiyanti "Tutut" Rukmana, along with
another agent, the daughter of an army officer, to get the
backing of the army.
The 100 Scorpion light tanks were sold with the promise from
the Indonesian regime that they would not be used for internal
repression. However, they were subsequently discovered in action
in the breakaway province of East Timor and in Aceh, the Guardian
said.
The sales were backed by the British government's Export
Credits Guarantee Department, which was left to pick up a 93
million pound bill when Indonesia ran into a financial crisis, it
said.
President Soeharto was ousted and Indonesia has asked to
postpone payment of its debts.
The Guardian said Susan Hawley, of the anti-corruption
campaign the Corner House, said the Export Credits Guarantee
Department "should have spotted that the president's daughter was
involved. Why didn't alarm bells ring?"
Tapol, the Indonesian human rights campaign, called for a full
investigation by both British and Indonesian governments, the
newspaper said.