News the youngest son of former Indonesian president Suharto has been captured after a year on the run has spread quickly across the archipelago - but not to his ailing father.
Concerned about the health of Jakarta's most famous recluse, family lawyers said on today they were unsure how to break the news of the arrest of Mr Hutomo Tommy Mandala Putra, Mr Suharto's favourite child and the country's most wanted man.
"I am sure Mr Suharto does not know yet. We have to tell him slowly . . . we have to consult the doctors first before we do that," lawyer Mr Denny Kailimang told Reuters.
Local media had previously said Mr Suharto's family effort to prevent the 80-year-old former general from catching up on the country's news - especially reports criticising his three-decade rule which ended in chaos in May 1998.
His son was arrested yesterday and is a suspect in crimes including the murder of a Supreme Court judge who sentenced him to 18 months in jail last year for graft. That conviction later prompted Tommy to disappear.
Mr Kailimang said although Mr Suharto was in good physical condition, he could barely speak: "He can hear and understand things but . . . he can only say two words at a time".
The former autocrat steered Indonesia away from turmoil himself in the 1960s when he took over, but the rapid economic growth his rule fostered came at the expense of endemic corruption and human rights abuses.