Relatives of a late Indonesian official are suing the Japanese government over the seizure of his assets in 1945, a local weekly magazine reported in its latest edition.
Gatra reported that the heirs of Brodjosoewirdjo, formerly a senior official at the Surakarta Sultanate in Central Java Province, are demanding that the Japanese government pay compensation of 2.2 trillion rupiah (about $262 million) for material and immaterial losses stemming from the seizure during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies.
"Japan seized the assets of my grandparents," Sudarti Wignyodarsono, one of the heirs, told the magazine.
According to Sudarti, the assets seized by the Japanese occupiers were worth 115 billion rupiah. Applying a yearly interest rate of 24 percent, those assets would be worth 1.6 trillion rupiah today.
The assets included jewelry, two horses and a carriage, a car, diamond-encrusted swords and a fence for Brodjosoewirdjo's house.
To guarantee payment of compensation, the plaintiffs demanded in the lawsuit filed with the Central Jakarta District Court last Oct. 23 that the court confiscate the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta, the official residence of its ambassador and 18 embassy cars.
According to the plaintiffs' lawyer, after seizing the assets in 1945, the Japanese administration sent a letter expressing appreciation for the "handover" of the assets to help finance the war effort.
Following the seizure, Sudarti Wignyodarsono claimed, Brodjosoewirdjo and his wife lived in poverty and suffered physically until their deaths.
According to the embassy, Japan paid war compensation collectively to the Indonesian people in an agreement with Jakarta on Jan. 20, 1958.