T

he author of a book that alleges a conspiracy between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Golkar Chairman Aburizal Bakrie over Lapindo mudflow disaster has reportedly gone missing.

The book, entitled Lumpur Lapindo File: Konspirasi SBY-Bakrie (Lapindo Mudflow File: SBY-Bakrie Conspiracy) was brought up in a discussion forum in Bandung over the weekend.

The publisher said that he had lost contact with the book’s author, Ali Azhar Akbar.

Kusairi, the director of IndoPetro Publishing, the publishing company, said his last contact with Ali was through a text message on Tuesday afternoon. He said Ali assured him he was going to leave for Bandung to prepare for the book discussion.

Since then, Kusairi said, Ali had not replied to text messages or calls. “His cell phone is always inactive,” Kusairi said on the sidelines of the discussion.

He said that he had always kept in touch with Ali who would always reply every time he sent him a text message or a call.

“But, this is not the case now. His family have also said they have no idea of his whereabouts,” Kusairi said.

Ali’s family, according to Kusairi, confirmed Ali was not at home. Ali frequently left his family for a few days when he was researching his book, but he was always available for contact.

Kusairi expressed concern that something might have happened to Ali because the author said he had been receiving threatening text messages since last week.

The intimidation, according to Kusairi, started after Ali and two colleagues of his filed a judicial review to the Constitutional Court of Law No 4/2012 article 18 on the 2012 amended state budget that allows for the channeling of state money to deal with the Lapindo mudflow.

The three claimed that Lapindo Brantas, a subsidiary of a company belonging to Aburizal Bakrie, not the state, should have incurred the financial burden for the disaster caused by a mudflow that had inundated several villages in Sidoarjo, East Java, since May 2006.

Ali alleged that there was an SBY-Bakrie conspiracy in the amended state budget that meant taxpayers would pay compensation of Rp 9.6 trillion (US$ 1.01 billion) until 2014.

The book on Lapindo, Kusairi said, was based on four years of research that Ali had conducted from 2006 to 2010 and that half of the 449-page book concerned issues of the Lapindo case that had never been made public before.