House of Representatives ethics council member A. Bakrie has called on Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan to help ensure oil tycoon Mohammad Reza Chalid attends the hearing into House Speaker Setya Novanto'€™s alleged ethics violation at the House'€™s ethics council.

The lawmaker also called on the minister to order the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) to hand over to the council the original audio recording of a conversation between Setya and gold and copper mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia president director Maroef Sjamsoeddin at a meeting in Jakarta, a meeting that was reportedly also attended by Reza.

'€œCan you help bring Reza Chalid to Indonesia? And could you ask the AGO to lend the audio recording it has of the meeting to us? Frankly, those two things have hindered our work at the House ethics council. If we could resolve those two things, we are confident and believe that we will be able to complete our tasks,'€ said Bakrie at an ethics council hearing in Jakarta on Monday.

The lawmaker said that as a minister Luhut had the authority to give instructions or make requests to two state institutions, namely the National Police and the AGO. '€œHe has such authority. The police are under his ministry. The AGO is also under his ministry,'€ he said.

On Monday, Luhut answered the House ethics council'€™s summons to testify as a witness at the investigation into Setya. Meanwhile, the hearing that Reza was due to attend on Monday had to be postponed because of his absence. It was the second time Reza had failed to answer a summons from the ethics council.

The council is scheduled to hold an internal meeting on Monday evening to decide whether Reza'€™s testimony is still needed or whether it would work with the National Police to forcefully summon the oil tycoon to attend the next hearing.

Bakrie said, however, that with or without Reza'€™s testimony the council would make its decision on the Setya case before the House recess period began this week. '€œWe hope that before the end of this week, there will be a final decision,'€ he said.

Responding to Bakrie'€™s statement, Luhut said he would ask both institutions, namely the National Police and AGO, to fulfill the council'€™s requests. '€œI will ask the Attorney General to proceed with the council'€™s request for the recording so that this problem can be resolved immediately,'€ said the minister.

Luhut's name was among several names frequently mentioned in the taped conversation that appeared to reveal Setya'€™s attempts to make personal gains from the renegotiation of Freeport'€™s work contract extension.

The recording suggests that Setya had asked the Freeport Indonesia executive to give President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla shares in Freeport in return for government approval of the company'€™s mining license extension. (ebf)

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