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)