Govt sets up team to hunt Eddy Tansil

JAKARTA (JP): The government has set up an interministerial investigation team to facilitate its efforts to track down businessman Eddy Tansil, who escaped from the Cipinang penitentiary last week.

"We're hoping the investigation team can immediately detect Tansil's whereabouts and capture him," Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman told reporters after chairing the team's first meeting in his office yesterday.

In addition, the government has also contacted the authorities of all countries which Tansil might have chosen as his destination, Oetojo said here yesterday.

The team consists of officials from the ministries of justice, home affairs, foreign affairs and information, the Attorney General's Office and the Armed Forces. Among the countries it has contacted are Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Director for Supervision and Execution of the Directorate General of Immigration Rahardi Suroprawiro said on a separate occasion that his office had contacted a number of countries where Tansil reportedly has a residence or a branch of his companies.

The Indonesian immigration office in Singapore has tried to locate Tansil's daughter Jennifer Tan, who attended a local primary school there, Rahardi said. She was reportedly admitted to a hospital on the day Tansil escaped from the prison.

"We checked 16 hospitals in Singapore, but found no patient with that name," Rahardi said. He also said that Jennifer had graduated from the primary school last December, but there was no information about whether she was registered in a local junior high school.

"Jennifer was still registered as a resident at her apartment, but she was not in when our officials checked with the apartment owner," he said.

Tansil, the owner of the Golden Key business group, was serving his 20-year jail term for corruption when he literally walked out of the Cipinang correctional institution last Saturday. He was allegedly helped by officials inside the prison.

The 42-year old businessman was convicted in 1994 for defrauding state-owned Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo) of Rp 1.3 trillion (US$620 million).

Police said yesterday that more suspects, including fellow prisoners, employees of the Cipinang prison and of the Harapan Kita Cardiac Center hospital, in which Tansil had reportedly gone for a medical check-up, will be questioned in connection with the escape.

"Our investigation has significantly shown indications of power abuse and a wide-scale conspiracy," city police spokesman Lt. Col. Iman Haryatna said here yesterday. "For this reason, we are insisting that the East Jakarta police question more people."

Police have found that a number of people had illegally granted their approval on Tansil's forms of request for a medical check-up.

Police have arrested 10 men so far, not 11 as mentioned earlier, Iman said.

"We have incorrectly mentioned one suspect twice," Iman said, adding that the number might increase.

In some of the preliminary investigations, the suspects revealed that Tansil had on at least four occasions used counterfeited medical-examination forms to leave the prison and visit his family in Central Jakarta, Iman said.

Meanwhile, Tansil's escape continued to anger many people. Legal expert Muladi and Moslem leader Amien Rais, of Semarang and Yogyakarta respectively, agreed it tarnished the image of the country's legal system.

Here in Jakarta, Governor Surjadi Soedirdja guaranteed that the security officials would be able to capture Tansil if he was still in Jakarta.

"I am sure Tansil will be captured. I have instructed all neighborhood chiefs to keep watch," he said. (imn/bsr/har)