Doctors silent on Tommy's illness

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.