[JURIST] An Indonesian court Thursday dismissed a civil corruption case against Tommy Suharto [BBC report], the youngest son of former Indonesian President Haji Mohammad Suharto [CNN profile; JURIST news archive]. The court also awarded some $550,000 to Suharto on a counter-claim for damages. Lawyers for Suharto argued that the case should be dismissed because related criminal charges had been dropped, but prosecutors argued that the law permits a civil suit even where a defendant was not criminally liable.

Prosecutors brought the suit [JURIST report] in November 2007 to recover an alleged $55 million in losses related to a land exchange scam from the mid-1990s, in which Tommy Suharto allegedly traded inexpensive swamp land to government-run logistics agency Bulog [official website] in return for high value real estate in Jakarta. In October 2006, Tommy Suharto was released from prison by court order [JURIST report] after serving a sentence for hiring a hitman to kill a Supreme Court judge [BBC report] who had found him guilty in an earlier corruption case. AFP has more.