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.