Court promises to thoroughly probe Arutmin graft case
Wednesday, October 4 2000 - 04:30 AM WIB
The Balikpapan District Court in East Kalimantan, which is examining the graft case in coal mining company PT Arutmin Indonesia, promised a thorough examination to unveil all people involved in the corruption case.
"The panel of judges will unveil everything. Everything will be clear," court spokesman Suharto, who is also a member of the panel of judges examining the case, said.
He made the statement following the reluctance of the accused, identified by the initial Supd, the director of Arutmin's contractor CV Cakra Inti Pursuma Balikpapan, to reveal the names of all people who shared the Rp 5.1 billion (US$1=Rp 8, 775) fund reportedly embezzled out of Arutmin.
The prosecutors have put Supd under house arrest, and three employees of Arutmin, including Arutmin's logistics and service manager identified as TS, in prison on charges of colluding with Supd to swindle the fund.
However, the panel of judges suspected there were other people involved in the corruption case.
Supd, who provided transportation service to Arutmin, has reportedly managed to swindle the Rp 5.1 billion fund out of Arutmin by marking up the transportation costs in 1999. The fund was delivered to Supd after the invoices were approved by TS.
However, TS said he approved the invoices after they were approved by a number of Arutmin's employees, including expatriate employees.
Arutmin is the subsidiary of Australia-based BHP Pty Ltd. (*)