Time Magazine charged for 'defaming Suharto'

[Che Guava]

...getting rich by people claiming that he was already rich...hmmmm

Time ordered to pay Suharto $106m

US magazine giant Time has been ordered to pay $106m (£52m) in damages to the former Indonesian President Suharto.

Indonesia's highest court overturned the decision of two lower courts and ruled that the Time article, published in 1999, defamed the former ruler.

The article alleged $73bn had passed through the Suharto family's hands during the president's 32-year reign.

A lawyer for Mr Suharto welcomed the ruling, but there was no immediate word from Time magazine.

The magazine's only legal avenue is a judicial review, which requires fresh evidence or a procedural dispute, the BBC's Kate Hamann in Jakarta reports.

Four-month investigation

A spokesman for Indonesia's Supreme Court said the ruling was made by a panel of judges on 30 August.

They had ordered the magazine to pay $106m in damages and publish an apology in various Time editions as well as Indonesian publications, the spokesman, Nurhadi, said.

The court "found the article has damaged the reputation and honour of the grand general of the Indonesian armed forces and former president of Indonesia", he said.

Time published the article in its Asian edition a year after President Suharto was forced to resign after public protests.

It said the evidence was gathered during a four-month probe involving correspondents in 11 countries.

The article alleged that the Suharto family had amassed some $73bn "in revenues and assets" during his rule, but lost much of it during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

The article, entitled "Family Firm", claimed the Suharto family still had $15bn in 1999.

Mr Suharto filed a defamation suit against the magazine, originally seeking more than $27bn in damages.

His case was rejected by Jakarta's District Court in 2000 and then the Appeal Court in 2001, before succeeding with the Supreme Court.

Civil case

Mr Suharto has long faced allegations of amassing a fortune while in power - claims he has always denied.

A criminal case against him was blocked by the courts last year on the grounds of the 86-year-old's ill health.

He has had a number of strokes and last year underwent stomach surgery.

Prosecutors have since tried to bring a civil case against the former president, seeking $440m they claim disappeared from a state scholarship fund, and $1.1bn in damages.

They said they are set to return to court after failing to reach an out-of-court settlement with the defence lawyers as requested by the judge at the hearing last month.

link

Hmmm...I always thought that Suharto skimming off the top was for all intents and purposes, fact. But it looks as though there are still plenty of folk investigating him, so maybe the truth is yet to come...

 

[cubsfan6506]

Bet ya they don't pay it.

 

[Che Guava]

Bet ya they don't pay it.

It might depend onthe circulation of TIME in Indonesia

 

[The Yankee]

"It's not true that I took money! Now, I want money!"

It seems as if the ruling says defaming Suharto is somehow worse than defaming Joe Schmo. But, I wonder how much evidence on both sides was considered by the court.

 

[cubsfan6506]

I bet you times market in Indonesia isn't worth 106 ml.

 

[Leonel]

You know if Suharto threw in the towel before he got into corruption, he would be hailed as a national hero.

 

[The Yankee]

I bet you times market in Indonesia isn't worth 106 ml.

.....

So?

 

[Che Guava]

Here's a question for the lawyers: if it is revealed through other investigations that Suharto was actually involved in embezzling vast amounts of money, but the times article was only written on speculation, does the lawsuit still stand? (i.e. if the lies are indeed truths, does that change anything?)

 

[The Yankee]

I suppose it would depend on what the Indonesian justice system would say about it, whatever we say on it.

 

[EdwardTking]

Here's a question for the lawyers: if it is revealed through other investigations that Suharto was actually involved in embezzling vast amounts of money, but the times article was only written on speculation, does the lawsuit still stand? (i.e. if the lies are indeed truths, does that change anything?)

This varies a great deal according to jurisdiction and the particular judges.

In the UK an article can be 95% substantiated as true, but the court may award entirely for the plaintive on the basis of the 5% unsubstantiated.
As in the McLibel case.

 

[Theige]

.....

So?

So Time most likely won't be paying diddly, as Indonesian has next to no influence over Time magazine.

 

[The Yankee]

I know, necroposting, but this op-ed puts a light on the Suharto-Time case:

link

Editorial
Time and the Dictator

Published: December 29, 2007
After 32 years of ruling Indonesia with an iron fist and a grabbing hand, then-President Suharto was forced to step down in 1998. While gone from power, he clearly is not forgotten. A few months ago, an Indonesian court ordered Time magazine to pay the former dictator a judgment now valued at about $111 million in a libel case. The verdict, which Time is challenging, should not be allowed to stand.

Suharto’s case — which would be laughable if it were not so serious — concerns a May 1999 cover story in Time’s Asian edition, reporting that he and his family had amassed a fortune of about $15 billion, including $9 billion in an Austrian bank account. Two lower courts dismissed the suit, including the central Jakarta district court which found the article, titled “Suharto Inc.,” to be balanced, responsibly reported and in the public interest.

After Suharto pressed his complaint, arguing that the story portrayed him negatively as a greedy person, a Supreme Court panel concluded that Time had defamed the former strongman. It ordered the magazine, its Asia editor and five other staff members (only two now live in Indonesia) to pay the judgment and apologize to him.

Time and its team of journalists are not the first or the last to report on how Suharto amassed a fortune during his years in power. The Times has also written about it in detail. In a report last June, the World Bank — which considers the problem of stolen wealth from developing nations a “huge and serious problem” exceeding $1 trillion per year — put Suharto on a list of 10 leaders who had “allegedly embezzled” from their countries.

By the time he was forced out in the financial chaos of 1998, Suharto and his family controlled hotels, toll roads, airlines and TV stations across the country. The World Bank — citing figures compiled in 2004 by Transparency International, a nonpartisan global organization battling corruption — estimated his assets at between $15 billion to $35 billion in a country with an economy of $86 billion.

The court’s decision is a threat to a free press. It mocks the reform efforts of Indonesia’s democratically elected government. It undermines the country’s struggle to get beyond Suharto’s corrupt legacy. We hope the panel that hears Time’s appeal will see Suharto’s suit for what it really is — the last grasp for vindication by an autocrat with no legitimate case to argue.

Has he gone after other publications that have stated that Suharto took money from the country?

 

[Ansar]

And for a moment, I thought Che was back...

 

[Princeps]

Suharto is probably a worse mass murderer than Saddam, and he established one of the most corrupt regimes on Earth, which plundered Indonesia, he slaughtered hundreds of thousands in Indonesia and East-Timor. It's a shame that he still lives.