JAKARTA Indonesian prosecutors on Friday went to arrest the youngest son of former president Suharto and take him to jail to start an 18-month sentence for graft, but the brash businessman was not home.
A lawyer for Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra said his client was still in Jakarta, but refused to say where.
"Don't worry, Mr. Tommy is in Jakarta," lawyer Nudirman Munir told Reuters via his mobile phone.
"We waited for court officials until 3.00 p.m. and they didn't come, so we left the house. We thought it's already past working hours." Many businesses in this mainly Muslim nation work only half a day on Friday, the Muslim prayer day.
Hordes of reporters along with prosecutors and police converged on Tommy's plush central Jakarta residence.
Prosecutors said they would wait for him to return but gave no time frame.
Jakarta has been abuzz with rumors over when Tommy would be sent to the capital's Cipinang prison since President Abdurrahman Wahid on Thursday signed a decree formally rejecting the former racing car driver's plea for a pardon over his conviction.
"We are now going to his house to execute the sentence," Fachmi, the chief prosecutor in Tommy's land-scam case, earlier told reporters at the south Jakarta attorney-general's office, which had handled the initial probe into the affair.
Tommy's conviction marks the first for any member of Suharto's family over graft. Prosecutors have separately appealed a court decision last September to dismiss a corruption case against Suharto himself on the grounds he was too ill.
(Reuter)