Indonesia launches civil suit against Suharto son

By Telly Nathalia

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian state prosecutors filed a lawsuit against a son of former President Suharto on Wednesday, seeking to recover $53 million in losses to the state in a property deal in the 1990s.

Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, the youngest son of the former autocrat, was sentenced to 18 months in jail in 2000 after being found guilty of corruption in a land swap deal between a supermarket chain he controlled and the state food agency, Bulog.

But he went into hiding and the Supreme Court overturned the sentence after he was captured for another case.

The deal had cost the state 500 billion rupiah ($53 million) in losses, said Yoseph Suardi Sabda, director of the civil cases division at the Attorney General's Office.

The suit is related to the government's attempt to seize millions of dollars Tommy had deposited in Guernsey island, he said.

"We need to file charges so that we can have his account frozen. This is proof that Tommy has legal problems in Indonesia," he said.

Tommy has also been questioned in a 175 billion rupiah graft case involving the lucrative clove monopoly agency he chaired in the 1990s.

The case revolves the alleged misuse of central bank assistance given to the agency, set up to stabilise prices of clove to manufacture cigarettes.