Suharto's son released from jail

JAKARTA, Oct 30 (Reuters) Former Indonesian president Suharto's youngest son was conditionally released from jail today, after serving a third of his original sentence for plotting the murder of a Supreme Court judge.

Hutomo ''Tommy'' Mandala Putra was sentenced to 15 years for paying a hitman to kill the judge and other offences, but that was reduced to 10 years on appeal and further sliced by a series of holiday ''remissions''.

In all he served five years before today's release, which drew fire from critics as showing undue leniency to a powerful figure.

''He is out. He will serve the remaining time outside the prison,'' Gusti Tamarjaya, the justice ministry official handling penitentiaries in Jakarta, told reporters.

While no longer in jail, Tommy is theoretically still a prisoner, having to meet conditions of probation.

Guards switched Tommy from a van to a car after he was blocked by a crowd of reporters and photographers scrambling for comment and footage when he emerged from an East Jakarta jail.

Tommy was originally sentenced in 2002, when he had already served about a year while the prosecution was underway. The murdered judge had convicted Tommy in a graft case.

Like thousands of other Indonesian prisoners, Tommy has had reductions from the remission programme. The latest six-week cut last week for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday meant he had served two-thirds of his reduced sentence, making him eligible for release.

INDONESIAN JUSTICE UNDER SPOTLIGHT ''In a country upholding the law, we cannot discriminate. After he has served two-thirds of his sentence, automatically he is free with conditions,'' Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters.

However, not all prisoners who serve two-thirds of their terms are released, and the country's attorney general had earlier been quoted as saying various factors could be weighed before a decision was made.

Johnson Pandjaitan, a leading human rights lawyer from the Indonesian Human Rights and Legal Aid Association, said it was wrong to view the release as automatic.

''Conditional release is never automatic. Nothing is really automatic. It should go through a certain process.'' ''The problem is this country has a president but does not have a leader in law enforcement,'' Pandjaitan told Reuters, referring to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is currently on a trip to China.

''(Yudhoyono) had the chance to control his justice ministry officials but he did not take it,'' said Pandjaitan.

Tommy's original sentence of 15 years had drawn fire from some quarters as too lenient and showing Indonesian justice had one standard for the rich and powerful and another for the poor and weak.

Prison and other government officials have said the courts acted independently in Tommy's case and the sentence remissions have been similar to those granted others.

Tommy's father ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for more than three decades before stepping down in 1998, and several members of his family became rich. Suharto himself has been charged with graft but not prosecuted as courts have accepted medical statements he is too ill to stand trial.

REUTERS SP VV1503