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Profile: Suharto's playboy son

He also owns a 75% stake in an 18-hole golf course with 22 luxury apartments in England.

A $4m hunting ranch in New Zealand and a half share in a $4m yacht moored in Australia are other symbols of his extravagant lifestyle.

The flamboyant son of former Indonesian President Suharto had a lavish lifestyle before going into hiding.

Until his marriage in 1997, Hutomo Mandala Putra, nicknamed "Tommy", was renowned as a playboy who had dated a string of Indonesian starlets and beauty queens.

But last September he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for corruption and has been a fugitive since giving police the slip.

The case against him has grown more serious still since police implicated him in the 26 July killing of Supreme Court judge Syafiuddin Kartasasmita.

Mr Kartasasmita, shot in broad daylight, was one of those who had sentenced Tommy.

Weapons

Police say two of the gunmen allegedly responsible admitted to being paid 100 million rupiah ($10,800) and to having handed the weapons back to Tommy after the shooting.

A cache of weapons and explosives was found at one of Tommy's homes, along with a fake identity card allegedly belonging to him. Police say he may also have been behind a series of bombings in Jakarta.

In January police also broke into a bunker under one of Tommy's homes, after drilling through thick concrete for two days.

Tommy was the first of the former president's family to face prosecution for corruption. The allegations emerged from an $11m land deal involving a retail company.

Family business

For 32 years President Suharto ruled Indonesia as a kind of family business. The family amassed a fortune estimated at $45bn, through a series of monopolies and corrupt deals.

Tommy's share of this wealth is estimated at $800m.

His wide-ranging business interests stretch throughout Indonesia to the United States, to New Zealand and Nigeria.

Under the banner of the Humpuss Conglomerate, Tommy holds significant shareholdings in an estimated 90 companies.

Their activities range from oil exploration to natural gas, pharmaceuticals, construction and shipping.

Cars

But it is for cars and golf courses that Tommy is best known.

In Jakarta, Tommy liked to travel in a sparkling royal blue Rolls-Royce, just one of the many cars in his personal collection.

His love of fast cars was confirmed in 1993, when he spent $40m acquiring a majority shareholding in the Italian luxury car manufacturer, Lamborghini.

Perhaps the greatest gift Tommy received from his father was the exclusive franchise for the production of Indonesia's national car, the "Timor".

He was later forced to relinquish this lucrative tax-exempt project as a condition of the International Monetary Fund bail-out for Indonesia in 1998.

He also had to surrender a valuable local monopoly on cloves - a key ingredient in Indonesia's sweetly-scented kretek cigarettes.

 

Document Source

Title Profile: Suharto's playboy son
Publisher BBC News
Pub. date Fri, 15 Sep 2000
Website http://news.bbc…ific/925992.stm