“Cendana” Family’s Wealth May be Confiscated as Guarantee
Tuesday, 05 February, 2008 | 15:28 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The state attorney team from the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) is of the opinion that the assets of Suharto’s beneficiaries can be included in the list of guaranteed confiscation in the Supersemar Foundation civil case. According to Yoseph Suardi Sabda, one of the attorneys from the AGO, it can be the responsibility if the foundation’s assets are insufficient to meet the claim’s value. “The AGO can include it by a request during the trial,” he said in Jakarta last Saturday (2/2).

Before confiscating the guarantee, said Yoseph, the state attorney will make the effort to monitor the assets of Suharto’s beneficiaries. “The monitoring can be performed and the permit can be requested by replacing the position of defendant Suharto,” he said. “So that if there are liabilities to paid, it won’t be constrained..”

According to a civil law expert from Padjadjaran University, Isis Ikhwansyah, confiscating the assets of Suharto’s beneficiaries as guarantee can be performed in a civil case. “As long as they are Suharto’s personal assets,” he said.

In order to trace Suharto’s personal assets, the AGO can intervene as the third party. The right time for the AGO to do the trace, according to Isis, is when there is another civil dispute in the defendant’s internal suit.
According to Isis, the main requirement to confiscate the assets of Suharto’s beneficiaries is when there are indications of transfer to the beneficiaries as regards the assets.

Before he died, Suharto was the defendant in the Supersemar Foundation civil case.

With Suharto’s death, the South Jakarta District Court’s panel of judges asked the defendant to decide the beneficiaries as the defendant’s replacement. According to the state attorney, Suharto’s replacement is his six children.

Suharto’s legal advisor, Mohammad Assegaf, said that the AGO is not authorized to monitor the assets of late Suharto’s beneficiaries. “There’s no legal connection between the Supersemar Foundation civil case and Suharto family’s assets,” he said yesterday (4/2). “That is beyond privacy,”

The plan to confiscate the assets was not thought to be effective by Emerson Junto from the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) Working Body. According to him, the category of wealth resulted from corruption by Suharto’s beneficiaries and Suharto’s personal wealth is difficult to prove.

“Moreover through a civil claim.”

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