President has yet to receive Tommy's request for pardon

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra said on Tuesday that President Abdurrahman Wahid had yet to receive the appeal for pardon of Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, the youngest son of former president Soeharto.

"It will take two to three months to consider the appeal before Gus Dur will take any decision whether to grant a pardon," Yusril told reporters before a consultative meeting between the executive and legislative bodies at the Bina Graha presidential office, while referring to President Abdurrahman by his nickname.

"So, it's understandable that Tommy could not be immediately sent to jail to serve his 18 months sentence," he said as quoted by Antara.

The Supreme Court overturned last month the verdicts of the South Jakarta District Court last year, which had exonerated both Tommy and his business associate Ricardo Gelael from all corruption charges in the Rp 95.4 billion (US$11.2 million) land exchange deal between wholesale firm PT Goro Batara Sakti (Goro) and the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) in 1995.

The Supreme Court sentenced both Tommy and Ricardo each to 18 months imprisonment.

Yusril said Tommy's appeal was now in the hands of the Supreme Court.

"The Supreme Court's justices will provide the legal considerations, which will then be submitted to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights," Yusril said.

Earlier on Monday, the Directorate-general of Immigration formally issued overseas travel bans on Tommy and his business associate Ricardo Gelael.

Spokesman to the Immigration directorate-general, Mursanudin A. Ghani, said his office immediately disseminated the ban on Tommy and Ricardo to 114 immigration offices throughout the country, only hours after receiving the request for the bans from the Attorney General's Office.

"We received the request, which was faxed to our office at 1 p.m. today (Monday).

"However, we have already taken the initiative a week ago to monitor whether Tommy or Ricardo had plans to leave the country. But up to this moment, there are still no signs of it," Ghani told journalists at his office.

Ghani said the bans, which will be valid for one year, were issued by the Attorney General's Office on Monday, pending the President's decision on both proposals for pardon.

Meanwhile, Secretary-general to the Supreme Court, Pranowo, said on Monday that Tommy's pardon proposal had to wait until next month due to the Court's work overload.

"There are 46 other pardon proposals already in the pipeline," Pranowo told journalists at his office.

"I hope that Tommy's pardon proposal can be submitted to President Abdurrahman Wahid through the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in the middle of November," he said.

In a related development, Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes Ramelan said on Monday that his office would reopen the prosecution into former Bulog's chief Beddu Amang over his alleged involvement in the Bulog-Goro graft case.

"We are encouraged by the Supreme Court's verdict on Tommy which also emphasized Beddu's role in the case," he said.

Ramelan said the prosecutors would only need to question Beddu one more time before accomplishing the indictment.

The initial indictment was dropped by the South Jakarta District Court last year as the prosecutors had failed to obtain an approval from then president B.J. Habibie to probe Beddu, who was a member of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

The prosecutors have sent the fourth summons since last month to Beddu, and expected that he will appear for questioning which is slated for Thursday.

"He has failed to meet the first and second summons due to ill-health. He also failed to meet the third summons, but without any prior notice.

"We hope that we don't have to force him to appear on Thursday," Ramelan said. (bby)