New York, 19 Sept. (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesia may become part of an initiative launched by the United Nations to help recover stolen funds embezzled to other countries, the Foreign Ministry said.

The UN’s drugs and crime arm is working with the World Bank on the stolen assets recovery initiative, which could see former president Soeharto’s crimes fully uncovered.

The former president’s name tops the 10 most notorious cases quoted in a UN document.

“To be quoted in a UN document is profound, sort of an acknowledgement,” said Arif Havas Oegroseno, director of political, security and territorial treaties at the foreign ministry before the launch of the project.

“We will meet with the World Bank on 21 September in Washington and we’ll see what kind of program (under the initiative) suits our needs.”

The asset recovery team at the Indonesian attorney general’s office (AGO) is currently making efforts to trace and return stolen funds sent to several developed nations including Britain, Switzerland and Singapore.

The AGO’s efforts are aimed at fugitives alleged to have embezzled money from the state coffers, including those implicated in the disbursement of billions of dollars under the Bank Indonesia’s Liquidation Support program following the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

A domestic civil trial is about to commence next Monday against Soeharto and his Supersemar Foundation, which will see the AGO demand the return of around Rp 15 trillion (over 1.5 billion dollars).

In May last year, the AGO dropped criminal charges against the 86-year-old after concluding he was too ill to face trial.

The AGO is also pursuing 50 million dollars deposited in a bank account in the Guernsey Islands by Soeharto’s son Hutomo Mandala Putra. The account was frozen by the Royal Guernsey Court in Britain.

The UN’s top 10 most wanted list was compiled by Transparency International and accompanying documents allege Soeharto to have embezzled between 15 and 35 billion dollars from 1967 to 1998.

Soeharto’s figure exceeds the list’s runner-up, Ferdinand Marcos, former president of the Phillipines, who is earmarked to have stolen between 5 and 10 billion between 1972 and 1986.

Soeharto last week won a case against Time magazine over an article published in May 1999 alleging he had stashed a massive amount of money abroad.

The magazine said it had traced some 15 billion dollars in wealth accumulated by his family in 11 countries.

The magazine also documented more than 73 billion dollars in revenues and assets passed through the Soeharto family’s hands during his tenure.

Actions under the UN-World Bank asset recovery initiative include strengthening prosecuting agencies, bringing financial centers into compliance with anti-money laundering legislatio and assisting asset recovery by developing nations with grants and legal counseling.

Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said governments should act fast once stolen assets had been detected, before the funds disappeared into other money laundering ventures.

“Rich countries and financial jurisdictions needed to be confronted with the fact that harboring stolen goods is a crime,” Costa said.

Indonesia has enjoyed little success regaining state money believed to have been laundered in Singapore. The funds have not been ratified the UN Convention against Corruption.

But Costa said the new initiative would work only where bilateral agreements on extradition were in place, which is not the case between Indonesia and Singapore.