T

he Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) said on Thursday that it had dropped a plan to question oil kingpin Reza Chalid as a witness in an alleged attempt to extort shares from a mining company.

The AGO'€™s decision comes in the wake of three ignored summonses issued to Reza, who, along with Golkar Party politician Setya Novanto, was implicated in an apparent conspiracy to secure shares in gold and copper company PT Freeport Indonesia in return for helping the firm secure an operating contract
extension.

In a recording, Reza and Setya were heard proposing to then Freeport president director Maroef Sjamsoeddin that the firm give shares to President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla to smoothen its ongoing contract negotiation process.

The AGO'€™s junior attorney for special crimes, Arminsyah, confirmed that the AGO had stopped attempting to summon Reza, who is thought to have fled overseas.

'€œWe won'€™t summon him again, but we will still try to get his testimony in different ways,'€ Arminsyah said at the AGO headquarters in South Jakarta.

Arminsyah declined to specify to which methods he was referring. He did say, however, that the AGO had still not named any suspects in the case, as it was still compiling evidence for the preliminary investigation.

Last year, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said filed a report to the House'€™s ethics council accusing Setya of promising to secure an extension to Freeport'€™s mining contract, set to expire in 2021, in exchange for shares in the company.

To the report, Sudirman attached the recording of the conversation between Setya, Reza and Maroef.

A voice believed to be Setya'€™s was heard asking for an 11 percent share for Jokowi and a 9 percent share for Kalla.

Following the controversy, Setya resigned from his post as House of Representatives speaker to avoid political embarrassment.

Maroef also resigned from his post as president director, leaving negotiations between the company and government in limbo.

Setya initially refused to be questioned by the AGO, arguing that a special permit from the President was required to question a lawmaker.

But House factions later agreed to form a working committee to provide political support for the AGO'€™s investigation into Setya, leaving him with no option but to answer the summons.

The former House speaker'€™s third questioning by the AGO was held on Thursday; speaking to reporters afterwards, the disgraced former speaker was tight-lipped.

'€œI have already disclosed everything I know and feel [about the issue] and I have explained it to the best of my ability. Hopefully I was able to answer all the AGO'€™s questions ['€¦] As a good citizen, I will comply with the AGO. The questioning was fluent and professional,'€ he said following the two-hour questioning session.

Setya added that he was willing to be cooperative and meet any future summonses from the AGO.

Setya'€™s lawyer, Firman Wijaya, said that while the Golkar lawmaker acknowledged that he had met with Reza and Maroef to discuss his daughter'€™s wedding, he had maintained his innocence during the questioning.

'€œThe main point is that he did not use the President or the Vice President'€™s names in any way related to shares,'€ Firman said.

The lawyer added that Setya did not know the whereabouts of Reza, believed to have left the country at the onset of the scandal, and that there had not been any recent communication between the two men.
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