Indonesia revives Suharto son graft probe

JAKARTA, May 23 (Reuters) Indonesian prosecutors have revived a graft case involving a lucrative clove monopoly once controlled by a son of former president Suharto, the attorney general's office said today.

In the 1990s, Hutomo ''Tommy'' Mandala Putra, youngest son of the former autocratic leader, chaired an agency tasked with regulating the trade of cloves, a key ingredient of a popular local brand of cigarettes.

The government released 175 billion rupiah (20 million dollars) in soft loans to the agency so that it could buy cloves directly from farmers in a bid to improve their livelihoods.

''We suspect that not all the money was spent appropriately,'' said Salman Maryadi, spokesman for the attorney general's office.

''Some of the money was used to buy cloves from brokers, contrary to the objective of the loan provision.'' Maryadi said, however, that no suspects had yet been identified and Tommy was not the sole target of the probe.

''We are still gathering evidence and we will name suspects in time,'' he added.

Elza Syarief, Tommy's lawyer, declined to comment.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently named a new attorney general, and dropped the justice minister, in a cabinet reshuffle partly aimed at reinvigorating his campaign against endemic corruption.

Since the high-profile campaign began, officials ranging from a former religious affairs minister to the governor of Aceh province have been jailed on corruption charges.

But some critics say the anti-graft drive has failed to take on some powerful vested interests.

Tommy, 44, was conditionally released from jail last October, after serving a third of his original sentence for plotting the murder of a Supreme Court judge who had convicted him in another graft case.

Critics said his early release showed undue leniency and favouritism for the powerful.

Like other Suharto children, Tommy became a super-rich business mogul during his father's three-decade rule.

Some of his projects were linked to political influence and corruption, including the clove monopoly and a failed national car project.

Indonesian authorities are trying to seize millions of dollars he deposited in Guernsey on suspicion that the money was obtained illegally.

They acted after a company owned by Tommy sued a branch of French bank BNP Paribas for refusing to release at least 36 million euros (48 million dollars) it had deposited.

Suharto senior, who resigned in 1998 amid civil unrest, was himself later charged with graft but escaped prosecution after he was deemed too ill to stand trial.

The former president and family members deny any wrongdoing.

REUTERS LPB BD1222