Cipinang jail in Jakarta is called "the heaven of all prisons" for its easy-going regime. On the evidence of a visit there recently, when The Irish Times was given access to the inner courtyards, the governor and inmates enjoy a relaxed relationship. VIP inmates have their own rooms in 4A block with television and air-conditioning.
Inmates with money to grease palms can enjoy imported luxuries and conjugal visits, and occasional days out, or even complete freedom, as in the celebrated case of a corrupt banker who simply walked out of the front gate after paying off officials.
But this extraordinarily lax prison is evidently not up to the standards required by Tommy Suharto, the millionaire son of disgraced former president Su harto, who has refused to turn himself in to prison officials to serve an 18-month sentence for taking bribes in a £10 million fraud.
In the latest twist in a soap opera which has riveted Indonesia, police said yesterday they were treating the favourite son of the former dictator as a fugitive after he failed to give himself up.
Tommy - the single name by which the 38-year-old playboy businessman is widely known - has been on the run since prosecutors arrived at his walled Jakarta home on Friday night to take him to Cipinang prison.
His lawyer, Mr Nudirman Munir, said Tommy had resigned himself to life in Cipinang, but was hiding because he had received threats about his safety there. He received telephone calls "telling him that once he gets into prison he will be killed and even other claims that he will be sodomised", he said.
How the hostile callers found Tommy when the police say they have been unable to locate and apprehend him is one of the intriguing mysteries in the farce which has developed over the case.
Former president Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron hand and imprisoned his opponents in Cipinang, is still a powerful figure in the murky waters of Indonesian power politics and the family has the continuing support of some officials and elements in the Indonesian army.
President Abdurrahman Wahid, struggling to remain in charge of the first democratic government in Indonesia, has linked Tommy with a recent series of bombings in Jakarta, which he has denied.
But the lack of urgency in apprehending him underlines the timidity of the government in pursuing the Suharto family. Police up to yesterday have even held back from entering his home.
The Attorney-General, Mr Marzuki Darusman, said he believed Tommy was hiding out there. "Our first search will focus on Tommy's official address. If he is not there, we will prioritise searching the area surrounding it," he said.
He did not say if they would extend the search to the mansion where the former president lives in seclusion, resisting corruption charges himself by claiming ill-health.
Cipinang's chief warder, Takasiliang, said he would guarantee the safety of the younger Suharto, who has been assigned the prison number 2085, and he would get VIP conditions.
In another shadow powerplay, Gen Syahnakri, the controversial officer in charge of West Timor when rampaging pro-Jakarta militias killed three UN refugee workers in September, has been appointed deputy army chief, a largely administrative post. It was one of several changes in the army made by President Wahid in an attempt to diminish the power of individual generals and remove them from political influence.
"He's the right man for the position based on his education, experience and support from peers," a military spokesman, Air Vice-Marshal Graito Usodo, said. Gen Syahnakri's background should not cause problems with foreign governments.