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enior legal expert Romli Atmasasmita has defended his move to file a police report against three antigraft activists whom he has accused of defaming him, saying that the action was needed to protect his public reputation.

On Thursday, Romli, a law professor from Bandung-based Padjadjaran University, reported former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) advisor Said Zainal Abidin and Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) activists Emerson Yuntho and Adnan Topan Husodo to the National Police'€™s Criminal Investigation Agency (Bareskrim) for allegedly slandering him, especially in their comments printed in print media regarding his
possible appointment as a member of the government'€™s committee tasked with selecting the KPK leadership.

After numerous media reports speculated that President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo would nominate Romli and two legal analysts known for giving counsel to graft suspects, Jokowi announced on Thursday that he had appointed nine female experts to be members of the selection team, a move that many deemed was taken to prove sceptics wrong.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Romli said the activists had made derogatory comments that '€œruined his dignity'€.

'€œI was never formally contacted [by the government] to join the committee. How come they suddenly cornered me with slanderous remarks, like about being pro-corruption, only because I served as an expert witness for him [Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan] in his pretrial hearing?'€ he told The Jakarta Post, referring to the deputy National Police chief who was named by the KPK as a graft suspect following his nomination as police chief in
January.

Romli, whom many considered as the brain behind the establishment of the 2002 KPK Law, also challenged the activists'€™ allegations that his presence in the pretrial hearing has harmed his credibility as an antigraft champion and therefore made him unworthy of taking the seat in the KPK selection team.

'€œThese people did not attend the hearing themselves. They did not know that even the KPK lawyers considered my explanations as objective, clear and impartial,'€ he said.

Romli said that the activists deemed him as a criminal.

'€œThey treated me as if I was a criminal. This is unacceptable,'€ he said.

The three antigraft activists have campaigned publicly against the nomination of Romli for the selection team membership.

In September 2009, the South Jakarta district court found Romli guilty of graft in connection with the Law and Human Rights Ministry'€™s online business registration service project.

He was implicated in the graft case in his capacity as the former director general for legal administration who initiated the project.

In February 2010, the Jakarta High Court reduced his sentence to one year in prison. In December 2010, a Supreme Court verdict freed him from prison.

Contacted separately, Adnan said he had learned about Romli'€™s report and that he has consulted the ICW'€™s legal team to respond to his legal action.

'€œWe respect Pak Romli'€™s rights to report anyone who he thinks has defamed him,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, a Jakarta-based pollster found that from the conversation that took place on social media in the past two days, the decision by President Jokowi to name nine female experts as the KPK selection committee had won overwhelming support.

PoliticaWave, which monitored the traffic on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Internet forums and online news portals, reported on Friday that there had been 24,574 social media conversations regarding the issue that emerged during the 24 hours after the announcement of the committee.

'€œMore than 22,000 conversations, or 93 percent, expressed positive responses, with most users showing appreciation of the fact that all nine committee members are women,'€ PoliticaWave founder Yose Rizal said.