JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Supreme Court has awarded ex-dictator Suharto one trillion rupiah ($106 million) in damages in a lawsuit he brought against Time Magazine, a court official said on Monday.

The decision is likely to spark outrage in Indonesia, where the ageing former president has avoided being brought to trial over persistent allegations of massive corruption during his 32-year, iron-fisted rule. “We accept the suit filed by Suharto and refuse the decision of the Appeal Court and Central Jakarta District Court,” Supreme Court spokesman Nurhadi told reporters, referring to rulings against Suharto made in 2000 and 2001.

He said the court, in its Aug 30 ruling, had ordered that Suharto be paid one trillion rupiah in immaterial damages and that an apology be published in Indonesian newspapers as well as three Time titles. Suharto had been seeking more than $27 billion in the defamation suit filed against the Asian edition of US-based Time over a May 1999 article alleging he had stashed a massive amount of money abroad.

Time said in the article that it had traced some $15 billion in wealth accumulated by Suharto and his six children following a four-month investigation by its correspondents in 11 countries.

The 15 billion dollars, the article alleged, included nine billion dollars in cash that was transferred from a Swiss to an Austrian bank shortly after Suharto stepped down amid unrest in May 1998.—AFP