The lawyer of House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto, Rudi Alfonso, said his client would report Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said for alleged illegal wiretapping.

Rudi said the Golkar Party politician'€™s legal team would file the report with the police after it completely identified articles Sudirman had allegedly violated.

'€œDefinitely, we will file a police report,'€ he said as quoted by kompas.com on Monday.

Rudi went on to say that so far, the legal team found three suspected violations committed by Sudirman. First, the minister had secretly wiretapped conversations between Setya, oil businessman Riza Chalid and gold and copper mining company PT Freeport Indonesia president director Maroef Sjamsoeddin.

Second, he said, the minister'€™s move to spread a transcript of the conversations'€™ audio recording might cast aspersions on Setya and his good name.

Third, Rudi claimed, the minister had slandered Setya by saying that the House speaker had misused the names of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, whereas his client had never committed what he had been accused of.

Rudi refused to detail which articles had supposedly been violated in relation to the illegal wiretapping allegedly committed by Sudirman.

'€œAccording to our existing laws, only law enforcement bodies are allowed to wiretap, and they need to first have a court permit before they can carry out wiretaps. Concerning the alleged illegal wiretapping [committed by Sudirman], we will first identify what articles have been violated,'€ said Rudi.

He said the legal team was also striving to get the original audio recording files that the minister had handed over to the House ethics council. If the transcript distributed to the public was not in accordance with the original audio recording files, Rudi said, this could strengthen the legal team'€™s move to submit a police report.

'€œOur client has the right to ask for evidence,'€ said Rudi.    

In his report to the House ethics council on Nov.16, Sudirman claimed that Setya and Reza had met Maroef three times.

At their third meeting on June 8, Sudirman said, Setya requested 11 percent of the shares in Freeport for the President and 9 percent for the Vice President to speed up the renegotiation of the company'€™s mining contract extension.

Setya was also reported to have asked Freeport to give him shares in a power plant it was going to build in Timika, Papua. The House speaker reportedly also asked Freeport to become not only an investor, but also the buyer of electricity produced by the power plant.

Sudirman claimed that he got all of the information from Maroef. He also handed over evidence '€“ a purported conversation transcript and audio recording file '€“ of the meetings to the ethics council. (ebf)(+)

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