Suharto's Kid Gets 15 Years in Jail

An Indonesian court on Friday declared the youngest son of former dictator Suharto guilty of paying two hitmen to murder a Supreme Court justice and sentenced him to 15 years in jail.

"The defendant has been proven guilty of all the charges," said presiding Judge Amiruddin Zakaria.

In addition to murder, Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy, was found guilty of illegal weapons possession and fleeing justice.

Another member of the five-judge panel, Andi Samsan Nganro, said Tommy paid 100 million Indonesian rupiah ($11,000) to the two assailants and ordered them to kill the judge who had sentenced him to an 18-month prison term for graft.

The murder trial was considered a test of post-Suharto Indonesia's ability to overhaul a notoriously corrupt judicial system.

"It is true that the defendant instructed them (the hitmen) to commit a criminal act and in fact the two carried it out," Nganro said. He said the handgun used to kill the judge belonged to Tommy.

Nganro told reporters that Tommy has one week to appeal the guilty verdict something he is expected to do.

With the defendant absent from the courtroom and his attorneys storming out in protest, the five-judge panel began reading the verdict Friday despite defense pleas for a delay.

The court proceedings were postponed only temporarily Friday when Tommy insisted he was sick and asked to see a doctor at his prison cell.

The 40-year-old former playboy has come to symbolize the excesses committed by Indonesia's ruling class during Suharto's 32-year reign, which ended in 1998 amid widespread pro-democracy demonstrations.

"He should have gotten more," Usnah Al-Weny, a 27-year-old housewife who attended the trial and burst into tears after the verdict. "He's a coward. He didn't even attend the verdict."

The verdict came after a four-month trial marked by frequent courtroom outbursts by the defendant, witnesses recanting their stories and the brief detention of a defense attorney for allegedly bribing witnesses.

Tommy was convicted of ordering the assassination of Supreme Court Justice Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, who sentenced him to prison in a graft case in September 2000.

The justice was shot dead by two hitmen on a motorcycle exactly one year ago Friday. The hitmen have already been given life sentences.

Tommy denied any involvement in the murder.

Some welcomed the verdict as a step forward in Indonesia's attempts to reform its judiciary. But Iwah Setyawati, the widow of the slain Supreme Court justice, called the sentence too lenient.

"It hurts very much," she told El Shinta radio. "This sentence is not enough. I have lost my husband. I have lost everything."

Judge Zakaria rejected pleas by the defense team to postpone the verdict until Tommy could be present. The six lawyers responded by hastily leaving the courtroom.

"We think our presence in the courtroom without the defendant is useless," defense attorney Juan Felix Tampubolon said outside the courtroom. "It is clear that the judge's decision to continue the hearing has violated the defendant's rights."

Applause broke out in the courtroom when Zakaria rejected the defense plea and began reading the verdict sheet, which is hundreds of pages long. Earlier, Zakaria read a doctor's report confirming Tommy had a stomach ache and headache.

Earlier in the day, about four hundred policemen carrying batons and handguns patrolled in and around the packed courtroom, where more than a hundred people gathered to hear the verdict.

Because the proceeding went on for nearly 10 hours, most of the crowd inside the courtroom had dispersed by the time the verdict was announced.

Prosecutors had requested a sentence of 15 years, but the judges were at liberty to impose a stiffer sentence, including death.

About 200 people, many of them Tommy's supporters, gathered outside the courtroom Friday morning. One man said he had been paid 50,000 rupiah ($5) to show his support for Tommy.

During Suharto's reign, Tommy was said to control a business empire worth $800 million. He and other members of the first family were considered untouchable — and his trial was widely seen as a barometer of Indonesia's progress in bringing the law's reach to the rich and powerful.

The day prosecutors were scheduled to deliver their sentencing request earlier this month, Tommy also said he was ill and the proceeding was delayed for a week.

Tommy's father, the 82-year-old Suharto, has avoided a corruption trial by claiming ill health.

Prosecutor Hasan Madani smiled at reporters when the proceedings ended Friday.

"I got what I asked for," he said.