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Antasari wiretapped Nasruddin: Witness

Prosecutors in the murder trial of former KPK chief Antasari Azhar read out Tuesday the dossier of witness Budi Ibrahim, who admitted that the defendant had ordered him to wiretap SMS and voice conversations of five unrecognized cellular phone numbers

Hasyim Widhiarto (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, December 2, 2009

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Antasari wiretapped Nasruddin: Witness

P

rosecutors in the murder trial of former KPK chief Antasari Azhar read out Tuesday the dossier of witness Budi Ibrahim, who admitted that the defendant had ordered him to wiretap SMS and voice conversations of five unrecognized cellular phone numbers.

Budi, who is the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) director of information and data management, found in his investigation that two of the numbers belonged to Nasruddin Zulkarnaen, the murder victim, and another number belonged to Rhany Juliani, another witness who is also Nasruddin's widow.

The other two numbers remain unidentified.

Presiding judge Herri Swantoro allowed the prosecutors to read out Budi's four dossiers during Tuesday's session despite strong objections from Antasari's defense lawyers.

The prosecutors said Budi could not attend the trial since he was currently studying in Germany.

Budi stated in his dossier that Antasari had ordered a wiretap of the numbers since they had been used to terrorize the defendant's wife.

"We knew their identities from conversations made through the cellular phone numbers," Budi said.

After a couple weeks, Budi found no significant information linking Nasruddin and Rhani to the threats against Antasari's wife.

He later suggested to Antasari that they should stop the wiretapping, considering the high cost of the operation and the urgency of many other KPK investigations.

"When I said that, Pak Antasari looked a bit upset and suddenly said *either he dies or I die,'" Budi said.

Antasari is currently on trial for allegedly plotting the murder of Nasruddin, the director of state pharmaceutical company PT Putra Rajawali Banjaran.

Nasruddin was killed in a drive-by shooting on March 14.

The murder was allegedly motivated by a love triangle between him, his third wife Rhani Juliani and Antasari.

Suspended KPK deputy chief Chandra M. Hamzah, who also testified on Tuesday, confirmed the defendant's order of the wiretaps.

Chandra said Antasari told his colleagues that his wife had received a number of aggressive calls and text messages from the five unrecognized cellular phone numbers.

Chandra, who led KPK's data and information unit, said Antasari had summoned him and Budi to his office on Jan. 6, to talk about the possibility of tracing the unrecognized callers using the KPK's wiretapping system.

"Pak Antasari wrote down all the phone numbers on a piece of paper and gave it directly to Pak Budi," Chandra said, adding he had later signed an official letter ordering Budi to wiretap the phone numbers for 30 days.

Lawyers and prosecutors responded differently to the witnesses' testimonies.

Lead prosecutor Cirus Sinaga saw Antasari's reluctance to stop the wiretapping of Nasruddin's cellular phone had proved that he had serious issues with the victim.

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