Suharto’s son denies corruption
The youngest son of former Indonesian dictator Suharto denied misusing government subsidies to enrich himself in the trade of cloves for the cigarette industry. He was questioned for seven hours by the attorney general’s office.
Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra was appointed by his father in the 1990s to oversee the Clove Buffering and Marketing Board, which was supposed to protect the interests of poor farmers.
In 1992, the board received about $18.4 million from state banks. Tommy allegedly used the funds to fix clove prices at artificially low levels and then sell the crops to cigarette manufacturers for a huge profit.
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