Thu, 28 Sep 2000

Lawyers charge dossier on tycoon Bob Hasan deficient

JAKARTA (JP): Lawyers of timber baron Muhamad "Bob" Hasan accused state prosecutors on Wednesday of coming up with an incomplete dossier on the defendant, who has been charged with swindling hundreds of millions of dollars from the state and the Association of Indonesian Forest Concessionaires (APHI).

They told a court hearing that prosecutors are charging the defendant, accused of defrauding the state of US$75.62 million and APHI of another $168 million through an allegedly fraudulent aerial mapping project, on the basis of a law that has been repealed.

"The prosecutors are charging my client under the 1971 anticorruption law, for enriching himself at the state's expense. The law is no longer in effect, as the 1999 anticorruption law was enacted on Aug. 16 last year," Augustinus Hutajulu, chief defense lawyer of Bob Hasan, told the hearing presided over by judge Subardi.

"How can anybody measure something that is claimed to exist (the alleged criminal acts) with something (the 1971 Law) that is legally non-existent?"

He said that primary and subsidiary charges were also based on the 1999 anticorruption law, which could not be used since it was enacted after the defendant had allegedly committed the crimes.

On another matter, Augustinus said prosecutors had stated in detail how the defendant had defrauded the state of US$87 million, on pages 30, 38 and 48 of the 52-page indictment.

"However, with regard to the said primary and subsidiary charges, the dossiers state that the defendant has defrauded the state of US$ 75.62 million. How did US$87 million become $75.62 million?"

He added that prosecutors had failed to provide reasons as to why they picked the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) to investigate the photographic results of the mapping project undertaken by his client's firm, PT Mapindo Parama (MP).

Chief prosecutor Arnold Angkouw had told a preliminary hearing that between 1989 and 1999, the defendant, as APHI chief, had awarded a mapping project without the consent of APHI members, to a company with the stipulation that he would become the company's majority shareholder.

The company, PT Adikarto Printindo (AP), eventually changed its name to PT Mapindo Parama (MP).

According to the indictment, on April 27, 1989, without calling an executive board meeting, Hasan, as head of APHI, signed an agreement with AP president Bambang Riyadi Sugomo, granting AP the mapping project.

On May 1, 1989, Bob Hasan became the major shareholder of PT AP, took over full ownership of the company and then changed its name from PT AP to PT Mapindo Parama.

He failed to update the initial work agreement he signed with Bambang, in which the company's name was still recorded as PT Adikarto Printindo.

The mapping project involved the mapping and aerial photographing of 88.63 million hectares of forest concessions, belonging to 599 concessionaires.

However, the permit issued by the Ministry of Forestry was for the mapping and photographing of concessions belonging to only 81 of the 599 companies, or 8.85 million hectares of forest concessions.

The photos themselves failed to meet various technical requirements and were deemed useless by ITB. (ylt)