Word: formerly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...done nothing wrong. His lawyers informed TIME that he intended to file suit for "false" charges that "defamed and humiliated" him. But an avid public savored details confirming suspicions of corruption and private profiteering that have swirled around the Suhartos for decades. On Friday, protesters demanding the former President be put on trial clashed with police. Attorney General Andi Muhammad Ghalib, who oversees an official inquiry into the family's wealth that has been creeping along inconclusively, told reporters, "I will set up a legal team to ask for confirmation from TIME." Amid dozens of newspaper, radio and TV reports...
Indonesians clearly deserve to know if their former ruler used his political power to enrich his family. According to TIME's investigation, the six Suharto offspring have significant equity in at least 564 companies, and their overseas interests include hundreds of other firms, scattered from the U.S. to Uzbekistan and Nigeria. The Suhartos also possess plenty of the trappings of wealth. In addition to a $4 million hunting ranch in New Zealand and a half share in a $4 million yacht moored in Australia, youngest son Hutomo Mandala Putra (nicknamed "Tommy") owns a 75% stake in an 18-hole golf...
...They held monopolies on the distribution and import of major commodities. They obtained low-interest loans by colluding with or even strong-arming state bankers. Subarjo Joyosumarto, managing director of Bank Indonesia, describes an environment that "made it difficult for the state banks to refuse [Suharto's offspring]." A former business associate of the children estimates that on commissions alone, they skipped tax payments of between $2.5 billion and $10 billion...
...investment projects of the Suhartos and their cronies as well as for the ex-President's political machine. The foundations accepted "donations," which were often less than voluntary. Beginning in 1978, all state-owned banks were required to give 2.5% of their profits to two foundations, according to former Attorney General Soedjono Atmonegoro. Suharto's Decree No. 92, in 1996, required each taxpayer and company making more than $40,000 a year to donate 2% of income to another foundation, set up to support poverty-alleviation programs. The foundations invested heavily in private companies established by family members and cronies...
Neither Suharto nor his children responded to requests for interviews, though lawyers for the former President and son Bambang asserted that their clients did nothing illegal. "He told me, 'I don't have one cent abroad,'" says Otto Cornelis Kaligis, Suharto's top lawyer, of his client...