Guns 'found' in Tommy Suharto flat

The court is sitting in a huge exhibition hall

A witness in the murder trial of Tommy Suharto, the son of the former Indonesian president, has said she watched police uncover a stash of weapons in his apartment.

Tommy - real name Hutomo Mandala Putra - has told the court that police planted them.

Charges against Tommy Suharto

Premeditated murder

Illegal possession of firearms

Fleeing to avoid an 18 month conviction

He is charged with masterminding the murder of a judge and with possessing weapons.

If convicted he faces the death penalty.

The latest witness was giving evidence on the fourth day of the trial, which has been sitting each Wednesday.

Drive-by shooting

Ida Sofia Salim, the elderly administrator of a central Jakarta apartment block allegedly used by Tommy, said plain-clothes police asked her to accompany them as a witness on their raid of the apartment last August.

Tommy is the youngest son of the former president

The former manager of the apartment block, Hetty Siti Hartika, told the court last week that police used violence and threats to force her to say the guns were Tommy's.

Ida Sofia Salim said she watched police open two cupboards in separate rooms in the apartment where they found long rifles, some wrapped in fabric, and large boxes filled with guns.

But when the judges asked her to examine the weapons displayed in court she was unable to identify them, saying she could not remember exactly what they looked like.

Supreme Court judge Syafiuddin Kartasasmita was killed in a drive-by shooting in broad daylight last July while Tommy was on the run from an 18-month jail sentence. The judge was one of those who had convicted him.

Prosecutors say Tommy hired two hit men and provided the gun.

Tommy, 40, was finally arrested in November after about a year in hiding. Controversially, his corruption conviction had been overturned a month earlier but by then he was a suspect in the murder case.

Correspondents say the trial is being viewed as a significant test of Indonesia's legal and judicial systems, which are still believed to be open to corruption.

Tommy is the favourite son of former President Suharto, who stood down in 1998 amid mass riots. He was accused of corruptly amassing millions of dollars but has been judged too ill to stand trial.