Ginandjar refuses to answer summons

Ginandjar refuses to answer summons

JAKARTA (JP): A deputy speaker of the People's Consultative
Assembly, Ginandjar Kartasasmita, a retired three-star Air Force
general, turned down the summons of the Attorney General's Office
on Thursday as approval from the Indonesian Military commander
for his questioning in connection with a corruption case had not
been issued.

Ginandjar's lawyer, Muchyar Yara, argued that the Attorney
General's Office should first obtain such an approval before
questioning his client.

"My client will fulfill the summons, as a witness, with the
approval of the military commander.

"But we object to the Attorney General's Office naming him as
a suspect, what's more, questioning him as a suspect, because
they don't have the right (to do so).

"It's not that my client intends to escape the legal
proceedings. But he was still an active military officer during
the period in question, so the case (with Ginandjar as a suspect)
should be handled by a joint investigators' team involving the
military," he told a press briefing.

Later in the day, state prosecutors imposed a one-year travel
ban on the retired Air Force Vice Marshal for his alleged role in
a US$18 million graft case, Attorney General's Office spokesman
Muljohardjo announced.

Lawyer Muchyar said his client was not reacting much to the
travel ban, adding that Ginandjar would first study the authority
of the Attorney General's Office to impose it.

"We could sue the Attorney General's Office for imposing the
travel ban on my client," he said.

Ginandjar, a former minister of energy and mineral resources,
was named a suspect on March 1 for illegally approving four
technical assistance contracts between the state oil and gas
company Pertamina and private oil company PT Ustraindo Petro Gas
in early 1992 and 1993.

Most of the firm's shares belonged to former president
Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo.

The prosecutors have also named Ginandjar's successor, Ida
Bagus Sudjana a suspect for amending the contracts, which later
incurred another $6.8 million losses to the state, and PT
Ustraindo's director Praptono H. Tjitrohupojo, a relative of the
wife of former president Soeharto, the late Tien Soeharto.

Suspect Faisal Abda'oe, former president of Pertamina, was
detained at the Attorney General's Office compound on Wednesday.

The prosecutors found that the contracts violated regulations
on technical assistance contracts because they covered oil fields
which were still productive at that time, including the Bunyu oil
field, East Kalimantan, Prabumulih and Pendopo in South Sumatra
and Jatibarang on the north coast of West Java.

Starting in February, the Attorney General's Office sent
several summonses to question Ginandjar, who was in the United
States for an academic program at Harvard University, under the
auspices of the Indonesian embassy and the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.

Ginandjar, who had several ministerial positions under his
belt during past administrations, had repeatedly indicated that
he would only return to Jakarta in July, when the program is
completed.

Muchyar said that his client had not planned to leave Jakarta
for the U.S. to continue his academic program.

Detention

On the same day, the Attorney General's Office detained three
bankers who are implicated in the misuse of the state liquidity
support extended to their ailing banks.

They are respectively, former director of PT Bank Umum
Servitia, David Nusa Wijaya alias Ng Tjuen Wie; the vice
president of the PT Bank Umum Nasional (BUN) board of
commissioners, Kaharudin Ongko; and former commissioner of Bank
Modern, Samadikun Hartono.

All of them would be detained for 20 days, Muljohardjo said.

PT Bank Umum Servitia received a total of more than Rp 1.2
trillion of the emergency loan to cope with the economic crisis
between 1997 and 1999. However, the prosecutors found that more
than half of the funds, or about Rp 681 billion, had been
misappropriated.

PT BUN, whose president commissioner was the magnate Mohamad
"Bob" Hasan, also a suspect in the case, received Rp 12 trillion
in loans but the bank misused some Rp 5 trillion of this.

The prosecutors revealed that the money was used to finance
the bank's affiliated business groups or to repay their loans,
instead of covering the payment to the bank's clients.

The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) found that from a total of Rp
144.5 trillion in liquidity support channeled to 48 banks, some
Rp 138.4 trillion or 95 percent of the loans had either been
misused or were extended in violation of banking rules.

So far only one case, involving PT Bank Aspac, had been
brought to trial. (bby)