Indonesia launches civil suit against Suharto son

JAKARTA, Aug 22 (Reuters) Indonesian state prosecutors filed a lawsuit against a son of former President Suharto today, seeking to recover 53 million dolars in losses to the state in a property deal in the 1990s.

Hutomo ''Tommy'' Mandala Putra, the youngest son of the former autocrat, was sentenced to 18 months in jail in 2000 after being found guilty of corruption in a land swap deal between a supermarket chain he controlled and the state food agency, Bulog.

But he went into hiding and the Supreme Court overturned the sentence after he was captured for another case.

The deal had cost the state 500 billion rupiah in losses, said Yoseph Suardi Sabda, director of the civil cases division at the Attorney General's Office.

The suit is related to the government's attempt to seize millions of dollars Tommy had deposited in Guernsey island, he said.

''We need to file charges so that we can have his account frozen.

This is proof that Tommy has legal problems in Indonesia,'' he said.

Tommy has also been questioned in a 175 billion rupiah graft case involving the lucrative clove monopoly agency he chaired in the 990s.

The case revolves the alleged misuse of central bank assistance given to the agency, set up to stabilise prices of clove to manufacture cigarettes.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono came to power in 2004 promising to tackle endemic graft, considered among other things as a major impediment to much-needed foreign investment, and officials ranging from former ministers to provincial governors have been jailed on corruption charges.

However, the anti-graft drive is still being closely watched as critics say it has failed to take on some powerful vested interests.

Last month, prosecutors filed a civil suit against Suharto senior seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds allegedly misused by one of his charitable foundations.

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

Both he and his family members deny any wrongdoing.

Cases against the Suharto family have often failed to make ground, prompting accusations Indonesia's legal system can be bent in favour of the rich and powerful.

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.

Like most of Suharto's children, Tommy became a super-rich business mogul during his father's three-decade rule. Some of his projects have been linked to political influence and corruption, including the clove monopoly and a failed national car project.

REUTERS AK KN1509