The Attorney General’s Office, or AGO, revealed on Wednesday a plan to drop the graft charge against business tycoon Tan Kian, nearly one year after he was named a suspect in the alleged misappropriation of military insurance funds.
Tan Kian — who in 2007 was listed among the country’s 40 richest people by Forbes magazine — had played no role in the corruption scandal, said Marwan Effendy, deputy attorney general in charge of corruption cases.
“What he was involved in is purely a civil case,” Marwan said.
The case stemmed from a $13 million payment that Tan Kian received from fellow businessman Henry Leo as part of an outlay for the purchase of the Plaza Mutiara Building in South Jakarta.
Tan Kian owned the building before it was seized by the government as payment for his debts during the 1997-8 financial crisis.
It was later found that the money used to repurchase the building came from PT Asabri, a state-run insurance firm for soldiers and policemen from which Henry and the company’s former director Subarda Midjaja borrowed more than Rp 400 billion ($37.2 million) in 1996 but failed to repay the amount.
The Jakarta High Court sentenced Henry and Subarda last year to four years in jail each for embezzling state funds. Tan Kian, who has returned the $13 million to the prosecutor’s office, has not been tried.
“Tan Kian was not involved in the PT Asabri case, as he is linked to Henry only through business,” Marwan said, adding that while his office has decided to drop charges, the formal termination of the case would require an approval from Attorney General Hendarman Supandji.
If cleared of charges, Tan Kian would join a long list of suspects in high-profile graft cases who have been released by the AGO.
Among those who have been cleared of graft and corruption charges are former presidential son Tommy Suharto, one-time Bank Indonesia governor Soedrajad Djiwandono and tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim, who allegedly embezzled Rp 24 trillion in central bank bailout funds during the 1997-8 financial crisis.
