Govt to probe Soehartos' assets in N. Zealand

JAKARTA (JP): Attorney General Marzuki Darusman said on Saturday his office will send a team to locate the hidden assets and wealth belonging to former president Soeharto's family and cronies in New Zealand.

"In the near future we will send a team there to do some research and to take any legal actions necessary upon the assets in connection with our investigation into their alleged involvement in graft.

"We've been given access to the country's financial institutions to trace the assets, including Tommy's," he said, referring to Soeharto's favorite son Hutomo Mandala Putra, who is convicted in a graft case and is now on the run.

Speaking to journalists after the funeral of Irian Jaya prosecutor's office head Bismar Mannu at the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery in South Jakarta, Marzuki claimed that his office had also received support from other foreign counterparts.

"We also gladly accepted the offer of help from the Swiss government. However, the assistance has not materialized so easily due to set requirements which we cannot meet in the short term," he said.

Marzuki said that instead of giving information, the Swiss government asked his office to provide the account numbers belonging to Soeharto's family and cronies.

"This kind of information is what we badly need from them. To settle this matter, I will ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs to persuade the Swiss government to help us in a more practical way," said Marzuki.

He further said he had also received the agreement from Bank Indonesia to cooperate with his office in freezing accounts belonging to whomsoever is named a suspect by the prosecutors in connection with corruption.

"We are entitled to ask Bank Indonesia to freeze the alleged ill-gotten assets and we can also get access to a suspects' accounts from the central bank," he said.

Marzuki argued that blocking the accounts was necessary in order to limit a suspect's room to move and minimize his or her ability to misuse the money.

So far, the prosecutors have seized some Rp 11.7 billion of Tommy's assets in Jakarta as collateral for the latter's obligation to repay some Rp 30.6 billion in state losses he caused in a corrupt land swap deal in 1995. (bby)