An Indonesian businessman who has been on the run for 13 years for corruption and illegal logging in his country has been arrested and prosecuted by Singaporean authorities for immigration offenses.

Adelin Lis has been found guilty of making false statements to obtain a visit pass on several occasions in 2017 and 2018, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said yesterday in response to the questions from the Straits Times.

On June 9 of this year, he was fined $ 14,000 for his offenses, the CIA said.

Court documents indicate that he was arrested on May 28, 2018.

According to the charge sheets viewed by ST, the 63-year-old falsely stated on his disembarkation form that he had never used a passport under another name to enter Singapore.

Adelin pleaded guilty earlier in a Singapore district court to four immigration-related counts. Eleven other charges, including the use of an Indonesian passport bearing the name “Hendro Leonardi” and a different date of birth to enter Singapore, were considered by the court in sentencing.

The Indonesian Attorney General’s Office (AGO) said in a statement on Wednesday that Singapore authorities had verified with the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore whether the two names – which shared the same immigration data – referred to to the same person.

“Based on the data available at the Directorate General of Immigration, it is confirmed that the two people are the same,” AGO spokesperson Leonard Eben Ezer Simanjuntak said.

In his home country of Indonesia, Adelin was known among environmentalists as the destroyer of Sumatran forests.

“He’s a big fish. His business in the downstream and upstream logging sector and his illegal logging activities, including his activities in oil palm plantations, have destroyed forests and caused losses for the state, “Arie Rompas, head of the forestry campaign team of the environmental group Greenpeace Indonesia, said ST.

Mr Leonard said Adelin had been a fugitive since 2008 and was on Interpol’s red notice.

In August 2008, the Supreme Court of Indonesia found him guilty of corruption and illegal logging in North Sumatra province, and sentenced him to 10 years in prison and fined 110 billion rupees. (S $ 10 million).

The verdict overturned a previous acquittal by a lower court, the Medan District Court, in November 2007, which sparked a nationwide outcry over concerns that witness testimonies were not being properly taken into account. by the judges and that the field investigation was lacking.

Adelin, the son of the owner of Mujur Timber, a timber processing company in Sibolga, North Sumatra, has been on the wanted list by the North Sumatra Prosecutor’s Office since July 2012.

Mr Leonard also said that Adelin and his bodyguards resisted arrest at the Indonesian embassy in Beijing in 2006, beating embassy staff before fleeing.

Therefore, the Indonesian attorney general hopes that Indonesian law enforcement will be allowed “to specially recover this prominent fugitive” from Singapore, he added.

According to the ICA, the Indonesian embassy on Wednesday offered to repatriate Adelin to Indonesia by private air transport. “However, the ICA declined this agreement because the repatriation of all unwanted foreigners is carried out independently by the Singapore authorities,” said the ICA spokesperson.

“In accordance with the procedure established by the ICA, Adelin Lis will be repatriated to her country of origin as soon as her commercial flight is confirmed.”