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)