Doctors silent on Tommy's illness
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
After claiming they carried out a medical checkup on Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, a team of 10 doctors at Gatot Subroto Army Hospital stated on Thursday that the convict must stay longer in the hospital due to the "seriousness" of his unidentified illness.
Dr. Robert Hutauruk, the head of the team who performed the medical checkup, admitted that the examination results revealed that Tommy suffered from numerous diseases that the team had not anticipated based on earlier medical records.
He said the team had drafted a letter to be submitted to warden of Batu Penitentiary on Nusakambangan island, Central Java, demanding an extension for his medical checkup pass.
"We have yet to decide how many more days Tommy will have to stay at the hospital for further examinations," Robert told the press, adding that the team would announce its findings at a press conference on Friday.
Tommy, the youngest son of former president Soeharto, is said to be confined to the hospital's VIP suite at the luxurious Kartika Pavilion with a variety of symptoms explained by his prison doctor as "chest pains, vertigo, dyspepsia and depression", but no independent confirmation has been made if he actually is there. All journalists have been barred.
Due to his health, the penitentiary warden granted him leave from prison from Feb. 9 to Feb. 12. His mystery ailment has also prevented him from giving testimony at the Central Jakarta District Court in an extortion/bribery case gone awry involving Tommy, the leader of an Islamic Boarding School Abdullah Sidiq Muin and Raden Dodi Sumadi, who is nowhere to be found.
Tommy had given Rp 15 billion to Dodi to hand to Sidiq, a mentor of then president Wahid, to influence the latter to give Tommy a presidential pardon after an earlier graft conviction. The pardon did not happen, so Tommy reported Dodi and Sidiq to the police.
Tommy skipped the trial for the seventh time on Tuesday due to his bizarre set of infirmities.
Tommy is currently serving a 15-year jail term for possession of weapons and masterminding the killing of Supreme Court Justice M. Syafiuddin Kartasasmita who had sentenced him to 18 months in prison for graft.
Tommy's lawyer, Elza Syarief agreed with the doctors that her client should be given more time to recover at the hospital's VIP suite. "He indeed suffers from a serious ailment," she stated.