Tommy Suharto to be free in September

Tommy Suharto, son of the former Indonesian dictator, is currently serving a 10 year prison sentence for conspiring to murder a Supreme Court judge. Its 4 years into the sentence and the latest news is he’ll be released later this month.

During Suharto’s era, the wealth and power enjoyed by his family, must have seemed God-like. Tommy, real name Hutomo Mandala Putra, has other rich friends who pressured people all over Indonesia, into doing things against their will, including local Balinese people down at Dreamland. Dreamland is a beach on the western Bukit Peninsula, that was destined to become a resort. Tommy basically took the land from locals and started to develop it, the process ending when he went to jail.

Here in Bali people say its a joke that he was in jail at all, his cell was more like a luxury apartment, he had a string of girlfriends visit, and was able to spend time outside due to his ‘eye problem’. It is sad, when a guy plots the murder of a senior judge, that the other judges let him with a light sentence. You can read between the lines there.