DENPASAR ~ A Kuta office building owned by flamboyant Jakarta-based lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea has been vandalised.

The OSO building, on Jl. Pantai Kuta, is being used as a law office. Lawyers there claimed the vandalism caused damage and theft totalling US$500,000.

Hotman reported the incident to Denpasar Police. He told them the incident was believed to have taken place about 4pm on Saturday, June 27, and gave police the names of four people he suspected of being involved. One of the four lives in Jakarta and another in Kuta.

Police say no one was in the offices at the time of the incident.

Hotman was part of convicted Australian drug offender Schapelle Corby’s legal team until January 2006, when the Supreme Court reinstated Corby’s 20-year sentence.

Corby is serving the sentence in Bali’s Kerobokan jail.

Hotman, who is rumoured to own diamonds, 60 houses and 15 cars, won wide attention in July 2005 when he appeared on the Australian TV current affairs show The 7.30 Report to defend his integrity.

He told the programme: “So I’m not Mr Clean, but for this case temporarily I am clean. There is no lawyer in the world is clean.”