SBY angry over Century conspiracy reports

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has again criticized the local media, this time after a TV station on Tuesday broadcast a story on his recent meeting with former finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, which it described as part of the Century Bank conspiracy.

Yudhyono, meanwhile, said this was inaccurate and unclear reporting.

“The meeting was held openly, and besides Sri has also come [to Jakarta] with other World Bank officials, so how could such a meeting be described as a conspiracy. Someone has been very illogical on this,” Yudhoyono said Wednesday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

He added that he had made himself very clear on the Century issue that should any misconduct be found behind the Century Bank bailout case that anyone involved would face legal processing.

“I have asked the KPK, the police and prosecutors to work on this case,” Yudhoyono said.

The Century Bank’s Rp 6.76 trillion bailout has been suspected by many lawmakers to have been used by Yudhoyono as a means to help out one of his biggest campaign contributors, the late Budi Sampoerna, whose account, holding approximately Rp 3 trillion, was deactivated when the bank filed for bankruptcy.

To date, however, none of the law enforcers, including the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), has been able to justify the suspicion.

Instead, the KPK has repeatedly said it failed to find any wrongdoings or indications of graft behind the bailout.