TMCnet News
DJ Indonesia Says Singapore Cooperation Key In Graft Battle(Comtex Finance Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)JAKARTA, Jan 11, 2006 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) --Indonesia needs an extradition treaty with Singapore in order to track corruption suspects who have fled to the city-state with allegedly embezzled funds, Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh said Wednesday. The Indonesian government has tried to negotiate such a pact with Singapore since 1973, Saleh told a gathering of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club. "I don't want to criticize other countries, but we've been trying to have an extradition agreement with Singapore, but it's not an easy job," Saleh said. "If we don't have an extradition agreement with Singapore, it's very difficult to catch the corruptors (and) many are living in Singapore." Dow Jones Newswires' efforts to contact the Singapore Embassy in Jakarta about Saleh's comments were unsuccessful. Saleh didn't elaborate on the number of corruption suspects believed to have fled to Singapore nor the value of their embezzled funds. International anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International has estimated that Indonesia's former dictator Suharto alone embezzled up to $35 billion in state funds during his 30-year rule. Indonesia's government has been unable to recover any of that money and doctors have decreed that the aging Suharto is mentally unfit to face prosecution for corruption. A plan for Indonesia and Singapore to sign an extradition treaty in December was derailed when Singapore asked that the two countries negotiate and sign the treaty in tandem with a security agreement, Saleh said. When asked about a possible graft investigation against Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX), Saleh said, "I have to learn first what's happening (in Papua)." Saleh indicated that he was unaware of reports that the Indonesian unit of the major U.S. mining company had made allegedly illegal payments to security forces posted around the company's massive Grasberg gold mine in remote Papua province. The New York Times reported last month that Freeport made payments of nearly $20 million to military and police officials in Papua from 1998 to 2004. -By Phelim Kyne, Dow Jones Newswires; 62 21 3983 1277; [email protected] -Edited by Mary de Wet (END) Dow Jones Newswires 01-11-06 0227ET |