The youngest son of former president Suharto defied authorities and failed to turn himself in for imprisonment yesterday, just hours before his deadline expired, with his lawyers demanding to see original legal documents.
"I'm not going to surrender my client because what has been given to us is only the photocopy of the presidential decree rejecting the clemency appeal," lawyer Mr Nudirman Munir, who represents Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, told journalists.
"We want the original one," he said, speaking after the chief of the neighborhood where Putra lives handed over the copy of the presidential decree to him.
He was referring to the decree signed by President Abdurrahman Wahid who on Thursday rejected a demand for a pardon, and seemingly exhausted Putra's legal moves to remain at liberty.
This was the latest twist in the saga since the Supreme Court handed down an 18-month jail term for corruption on Putra and his business partner, Richard Gelael, on September 22nd.
Despite the sentence, Putra has remained free while Gelael turned himself in late last Friday to start his jail term.
The head of the South Jakarta prosecutor's office, Mr Antasari Azhar, said the photocopies were legal documents, as they carried the official stamp of the South Jakarta district court.
Mr Munir said that Putra was in town and he was in contact with him but he declined to reveal his whereabouts.
Earlier on Monday, another of Putra's lawyers, Mr Erman Umar, said Suharto's son was angered by the prosecutors' raid on his house on Saturday.
Prosecutors arrived with an arrest warrant to find Tommy had already fled.
The house, in the plush Menteng area, was empty and a snarling black guard dog was on duty.
"Tommy felt offended by the prosecutors because they came to his house with an arrest warrant which he thought was unnecessary," he added.
Putra requested a pardon from President Wahid after the Supreme Court overturned two lower courts' rulings and found him and Gelael guilty of causing 10.7 million dollars in losses to the state through a land exchange deal.