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Heru Andriyanto
After Tommy Trial Fiascoes, Lawmaker Advises AGO to Hire Private Lawyers
A legislator urged the Attorney General’s Office on Monday to hire private lawyers after it lost three major civil cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars against Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra, the youngest son of former president Suharto.
“After the setbacks against Tommy Suharto, we are starting to doubt the AGO’s capability to recover state assets,” said Gayus Lumbuun, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission III, which oversees law and legislation, autonomy, human rights and security affairs.
“We might need to outsource lawyers,” he said.
Gayus made the remarks during a hearing between the commission and a large delegation of top AGO officials, which included Attorney General Hendarman Supandji, his five deputies and the heads of 30 provincial prosecutors’ offices.
“The prosecutors could let private lawyers do the job,” he said.
Last week, the AGO lost its bid to recover Rp 4 trillion ($340 million) in a civil case related to collapse of Tommy’s auto firm, PT Timor Putra Nasional, which was founded with massive government subsidies when his father was still in power.
However, Hendarman said that the AGO would not give up on its case against Tommy.
“The verdict was delivered by a district court and we are still in the appeal process,” he said.
Last month, a court in the British dependency of Guernsey rejected the AGO’s request to extend the freeze on 36 million euros ($46.4 million) kept by Tommy in BNP Paribas Bank, on grounds that prosecutors had failed to prove the money was embezzled.
Several months earlier, the Supreme Court ordered the finance minister, represented in court by the AGO, to return to Tommy a total of Rp 1.2 trillion in funds seized for debt repayment.
Edwin Pamimpin Situmorang, deputy attorney general for state administrative affairs, said the AGO had appealed against the rulings by the Guernsey court and the Supreme Court.
He said prosecutors had registered their appeal with the Privy Council in London on Feb. 9 and lodged a judicial review for the Supreme Court ruling last week.
The Privy Council is Britain’s top court for the hearing of appeals from Britain’s colonies or dependencies, such as Guernsey.
In November last year, the AGO gave up a graft investigation into monopolistic practices by the Clove Buffer and Market Agency, or BPPC, founded in the early 1990s by Tommy, because he had repaid in full the agency’s debts to the government.
Tommy, 46, was freed from prison in October 2006 after serving five years of a 15-year jail sentence for ordering the murder of a Supreme Court judge who had convicted him of corruption.
