Soehartos puts London homes on market: Report

JAKARTA (Agencies): Relatives of former president Soeharto are selling three lavish London properties in a move which could be linked to the corruption probe Soeharto faces back home, AFP reported on Tuesday.

Quoting The Independent daily's report on Tuesday, the news agency said the properties in upmarket areas of the city had been put on the market for a combined total of more than 11 million (US$17.6 million).

In Indonesia, an inquiry is underway to determine how Soeharto and his family amassed their huge fortune, estimated by United States magazine Forbes in its July 1998 edition to be worth some $4 billion, a figure Soeharto has called ridiculous.

According to The Independent, one property is available for some 8 million, down from 9.5 million. Another house, used by the family servants, is being offered for nearly 2 million and a third is on sale for 1.4 million.

The family is also believed to own another three properties in and around London, but it was not clear if they were also on the market, the report added.

Last September in Jakarta, researcher George Junus Aditjondro from Australia's Newcastle University said that among the family's overseas properties were five houses in London owned by three of Soeharto's six children -- Sigit Hardjojudanto, Siti Hardijanti Rukmana and Siti Hediyati Prabowo -- five houses in the United States, several houses in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands and a sprawling ranch in New Zealand owned by Soeharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.

He also cited a forest concession in Suriname controlled by Soeharto's half brother, Raden Notosoewito, a luxury cruiser berthed in Darwin, Australia, belonging to Tommy and several gas shipping companies owned by Bambang, Sigit and Tommy in Singapore. Soeharto's eldest daughter, he said, owned the operational rights to 300 kilometers of toll roads in Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar and China.

Soeharto, who has scoffed at reports that he built up a fortune during his 32 years in power, stepped down last May 21.

Soeharto's lawyers filed legal papers with the Attorney General's Office last Thursday demanding that the inquiry into Soeharto's alleged corruption and abuse of power be stopped.

Two days earlier, the House of Representatives Commission I for political affairs pressed controversial Attorney General Andi M. Ghalib to speed up the probe by naming Soeharto as a suspect instead of only a witness.