Indonesia has an opportunity to search and recover the multi-billion U.S. dollars stolen asset by former president Soeharto, as the World Bank and the United Nations have facilitated the act, lawyer of the Time Magazine Todung Mulya Lubis said here Wednesday.
Last week the UN and the World Bank launched an initiative in New York to help developing countries to recover stolen assets by the country's leaders. The UN puts Soeharto on the top of the list of leaders stealing assets.
Last month, the Indonesian Supreme Court punished the magazine with one trillion rupiah (some 106 million U.S. dollars) fines and begging an apology for featuring the nine-billion U.S. dollars wealth of Soeharto in foreign banks in its edition.
"There is an opportunity to carry out a tracking. It can be done by the attorney general office and the police," said the lawyer.
The lawyer said that the initiative by the world organization could be a signal for the government to cooperate with international organizations.
"Should the Indonesian government takes an active move, asking help from the government of Swizzerland or Austria, the United States, China, maybe there will be a way out," he said.
On its Asia edition on May 24, 1999, the magazine featured about how the former president Soeharto built his family wealth known as Soeharto Inc. It told about the transfer of the wealth from a bank in Swizzerland to a bank in Austria.
Soeharto had ruled Indonesia for 32 years and was toppled by a mass riot in 1998 followed the Asian financial crisis.
Previously, Soeharto has been prosecuted for foundation fraud. But the cases have dropped several times by the court and also prosecutor because of his health condition.
Source: Xinhua
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