Govt mulls options regarding cable leak

The State Palace is considering its options in response to the revelation by the Australian media on Friday of several secret US cables, citing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as guilty of corruption and abuse of power.

“[We have] several options, including to exercise our right to respond [to the Australian media]. This was clearly inaccurate information. We will fix this,” presidential spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.

“There is no truth in the reports,” he added.

Teuku highlighted that many other countries had expressed a lack of confidence in the legitimacy of WikiLeaks' data.

“See how big countries have reacted [to WikiLeaks]. Even Russia and the Middle East are questioning the truth about such trumped-up information,” he said.

On Friday, prominent Australian newspaper The Age published an article titled “Yudhoyono 'abused power'”. Another version of the story was printed in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Yudhoyono, according to sources in the US Embassy in Indonesia, personally intervened to halt the prosecution of Taufik Kiemas, the husband of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, in an alleged graft case centering around infrastructure projects in several locations in Indonesia, the reports say.

The President had personally instructed then attorney general Hendarman Supandji not to pursue the case against Taufik, who is now the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker.

Also among the cables are allegations that First Lady “Ani” Yudhoyono and her relatives had made efforts to profit financially from the Yudhoyono family’s political position.