Throwing the Book at a Suharto

The defendant's bellyaching, this time, would not get him off. The attorneys for Hutomo Mandala Putra (known as Tommy Suharto) insisted their client's stomach cramps and headache had kept him in his comfortable, air-conditioned celloutfitted with a television and a stereo systemand away from the Jakarta courtroom where a five-judge panel was set to rule on whether their defendant was guilty of arranging the murder of a judge, fleeing from justice for 12 months, and possessing illegal rifles, handguns, grenades and explosives. Such was the reputation of Tommy, 40, the youngest son of former Indonesian President Suharto, that observers in...