Mulia Group boss is charged with tax fraud

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta Prosecutors' Office will soon send Djoko S. Tjandra, the owner of Mulia group, to court for allegedly manipulating income and investment tax, which cost the state Rp 500 million in financial losses.

"Prosecutors handling the case could order him to be detained, if necessary," said office chief, Muljohardjo.

He declined to name the prosecutors.

The office received Djoko's dossiers from investigators at the Directorate General of Tax on Saturday.

The Mulia group owns Hotel Mulia in Senayan, Central Jakarta, among other enterprises.

Djoko, director of PT Era Giat Prima (EGP), was a defendant in the Rp 904 billion (about US$94 million) Bank Bali scandal, which implicated several big names including former deputy of the Indonesian Banking Recovery Agency Pande Lubis, Bank Indonesia governor Sjahril Sabirin, then state minister of state enterprises Tanri Abeng and then Supreme Advisory Board chairman A.A. Baramuli.

The scandal revolved around a Rp 546 billion transfer to PT EGP as a commission for its services in assisting Bank Bali to recoup Rp 904 billion in interbank loans.

Two years ago, the South Jakarta District Court dropped Djoko's indictment on a legal technicality.

The Supreme Court upheld the decision amid controversy, declaring that Djoko could not be tried for the case.

Another defendant in the case, Pande, was acquitted from the graft charges.

It was believed that the money was used to finance Golkar's campaign for president BJ Habibie's reelection.

The Central Jakarta District Court last month sentenced Sjahril to three years in jail for the case.

In another development, Muljohardjo, who became chief of the prosecutors' office earlier this year, announced that he would continue investigating some malfeasance cases, which had been neglected for some time.

"There are some cases here that have not been concluded although they had been accepted in 1999. We will hand the cases to the courts soon," he said.