Indonesia determined to bring Tansil to justice
Indonesia determined to bring Tansil to justice
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian government expressed its
determination Wednesday to bring back business tycoon Eddy
Tansil, despite not having an extradition treaty with China where
the fugitive has reportedly fled.
Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security,
Feisal Tanjung, said, "Jakarta will approach the Chinese
government to deliver Tansil to us.
"He's a criminal. We'll try to have him arrested and
extradited from China," Feisal told reporters at his office.
Similarly, Attorney General Andi M. Ghalib said Wednesday that
his office would seek the assistance of the Chinese government in
extraditing Tansil.
He added that Indonesia was now working out a plan to
establish extradition treaties with Hong Kong and China.
However it is not clear how long it would take to set up such
a treaty.
According to Ghalib, the Attorney General's Office would seek
help from both the Hong Kong administration and Chinese
government in pinpointing Tansil's exact whereabouts.
The Movement of Concerned Citizens on State Assets (Gempita)
on Monday claimed that Tansil was currently running a premium
brewery in Putian, in Fujian province, China, under a licensing
agreement with Germany's Beck's Beer Company.
Gempita alleged that Tansil had not changed his name since his
escape and is known in China as "Mr. ET".
He reportedly wholly owns the Putian Golden Key Brewery with
an estimated investment of at least US$ 10 million.
Tansil, 42, was serving the second year of a 17-year sentence
for corruption and violation of banking laws when he escaped from
Cipinang penitentiary in East Jakarta in May 1996.
He was found guilty of taking more than US$ 430 million in a
credit scam from the then state-owned Bapindo bank between 1989
and 1991 for the construction of several chemical factories under
his Golden Key Group.
Spokesman for the Directorate General of Immigration at the
Ministry of Justice, Mursanuddin A. Gani, told The Jakarta Post
on Wednesday that his office was still monitoring Tansil's
whereabouts, but said there was no proof yet as to where he
actually is.
Efforts to recapture Tansil started last year when then
Justice Minister Oetojo Oesman asked China's visiting Deputy
Justice Minister Xiao Jianzhang to arrest Tansil if the fugitive
businessman was indeed living in China.
A year has passed but there has been no information from the
Chinese government of Tansil's whereabouts.
Apart from the brewery, Tansil reportedly owns two other
companies in China, one of them a real estate company.
He is also believed to hold several bank accounts in
Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. (imn)