The Soehartos should be more frank: Muladi

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Justice Muladi has suggested former president Soeharto and his family be more transparent and honest about their wealth in order to help accelerate the government's probe into their alleged ill-gotten wealth.

"What's the use of possessing a lot of money when one receives endless denunciations from many people? It's better to be frank in providing information (of their wealth), so the problems can be settled thoroughly," the minister told Antara in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday.

Muladi, who also led the same ministry in Soeharto's last Cabinet, and Attorney General Andi M. Ghalib are in Austria on a mission to trace the whereabouts of the alleged US$9 billion transfer made by the Soehartos from a Swiss bank as reported recently by Time magazine.

The ministers and their entourage, including Ghalib's son who is acting as adjutant to his father, had earlier visited Switzerland.

Many however, speculated that Muladi and Ghalib were on an impossible mission and part of a theatrical puppet show put on by President B.J. Habibie's administration.

But Muladi, an outspoken law expert and a former rector of Diponegoro University in Semarang, Central Java, insisted on Thursday he would do his best to prove he was serious in tracing the Soehartos' alleged fortune.

He said he would even put his minister's career on the line.

Muladi said investigating the alleged crime with Ghalib was a challenge, since the latter has been strongly criticized by the public back home.

"Let people accuse us of bad things and be pessimistic about what we're doing in Switzerland and Austria because the most important thing for me is to do my very best.

I don't even have a problem if I'm no longer a minister. I want to go back to the campus of Undip," Muladi said, referring to the university.

In its May 24 Asian edition, Time magazine claimed in a special report titled Soeharto Inc. that the former strongman and his six children had amassed a total of $15 billion during Soeharto's 32-year rule.

Soeharto has denied all the allegations, including the $9 billion transfer claim, and has submitted power of attorney to the government to trace and collect any of his alleged overseas accounts.

The retired five-star general said the reports had slandered him and has lodged a complaint with the National Police against the New York-based magazine for slander and libel.

His six children have acknowledged the accuracy of a few of the reports, but denied most of them.

So far, none of them have announced plans to follow their father's move and file a complaint against the weekly.

The most recent member of the Soeharto clan to visit Ghalib's office in South Jakarta was Siti Hediati "Titiek" Harijadi. Time claimed she had amassed an estimated $75 million fortune.

Like her five siblings, Titiek, wife of Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto, former commander of the country's elite special force, Kopassus, said most of the report was untrue.

She acknowledged that as an arts collector, she did own works of the country's noted painting masters Affandi and Basuki Abdullah.

"But the value (of the paintings) does not reach $5 million as reported by Time. If it's so, I'll ask Time to buy the paintings," she said with a smile before being ushered away by lawyer Juan Felix Tampubolon and a group of plainclothes officers.

Titiek, 40, was said by the magazine to have a residence in London's Grosvenor Square, as well as holdings in financial services, power plants, computers, banking and property companies.

Spokesman for the Attorney General's Office Soehandoyo said later that Titiek could not answer all the questions asked by the team of attorneys.

Soehandoyo said the attorneys were still waiting for clarification on her alleged holdings in Moscow, Usbekiztan, Canada, Jordan, India, Yemen, Cambodia, Spain, Sudan, South Africa, Madagascar, Singapore, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Myanmar, the Virgin Islands, and Florida in the United States of America.

The spokesman revised his remarks later in the evening, saying that Titiek had answered all the questions by denying all the reports.

From Canberra, Antara quoted Friday's issue of the Australian Financial Review daily as saying that Soeharto and his associates owned properties in the Goldfield Heights highland area in Queenstown, New Zealand.

The area, well-known for its Wakatipu Lake, was a popular holiday destination for the Soehartos during his presidency.

The Australian daily reported that Titiek owned two modern resort houses bought from a multinational company.

Next to her properties was a smaller resort house, belonging to the former head of the National Logistics Agency, Bustanil Arifin.

Titiek's younger brother, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, owned an A$1.9 million luxury hotel, Lilybank Lodge, by the Tekapo lakeside which is surrounded by glacier mountains.

Former minister of finance Radius Prawiro, the late Tien Soeharto's close relative, was reported to have a resort house near Queenstown registered under the name of Loka Prawiro, one of Radius' children.

The Soehartos have yet to issue a statement about the new claims. (emf)