Yogyakarta sultan ready to face lawsuit

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogykarta

Sultan of Yogyakarta Hamengkubuwono X said on Monday he was ready to face a lawsuit charging him with illegally obtaining a plot of land and a building on it, arguing he had acted in the interests of the palace.

Last week three descendants of Sultan Hamengkubuwono VII filed a complaint with the police, charging Sultan Hamengkubuwono X with illegal appropriation of 40,410 square meters of land and a building on Jl. Laksda Adisucipto.

"I have no problem if they want to go ahead with the lawsuit; let the court reveal the true legal status," said Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, who is also the governor of Yogyakarta.

One of Hamengkubuwono VII's heirs who filed the complaint, Triyanto Prasetowo, said last week that the land and the building, Pesanggrahan Ambarrukmo, had belonged to his great grandfather.

The other two heirs were identified as Roosharwantoaji and Goewindo. They, however, offered no proof of ownership of the land and building.

The heirs charged the sultan with deliberately changing the ownership of the properties by omitting the Roman numeral after the name "Hamengkubuwono".

This move, they said, had transferred ownership of the properties to the palace as an institution, from the sultan's private ownership, which they could claim as his heirs.

They argued that the properties were the personal belongings of Hamengkubuwono VII. According to them, Pesanggrahan Ambarrukmo was the sultan's residence in 1921, after having retired from the palace as king. The building is located outside the palace.

But Sultan Hamengkubuwono X refuted the heirs' argument. He said the properties belonged to the palace as an institution and had to be treated as such.

"If it's true that they are personal belongings, then the properties should have been inherited by the heirs (of Hamengkubuwono VII) years ago and they would have since enjoyed this inheritance. But that did not happen."

"Even while the late Hamengkubuwono IX was in power, no one ever filed such a complaint," the sultan said.

He explained that because the palace was not a body with a recognizable legal basis, its properties were registered under the name Hamengkubuwono, without the Roman numeral.

The sultan said that even he, as an individual, had no power to sell the properties, but only to make use of them.