Yudhoyono admitted there was a conversation between him and MUI chairman Ma'aruf Amin in October 2016 when his son Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono wanted blessings from the council for his gubernatorial candidacy.

“We talked on the phone at that time because I could not accompany Agus to visit the MUI. We were only asking each other what the best time was for us to meet to talk about Islam and other issues in the country. There was nothing else,” Yudhoyono said on Wednesday.

The Democratic Party patron said Agus, his oldest son, was a grown man who no longer needed his father to do everything for him or to take him everywhere.

He said the recent accusation made by Ahok’s legal team was a serious thing and needed to be investigated.

“I hope Pak Ahok and his legal team could hand me the transcript of my phone call. Otherwise it [the allegation] could have been manipulated,” he continued.

(Read also: SBY calls for investigation into alleged "Watergate" scandal involving Ahok)

Yudhoyono was responding to a statement made by Ahok’s legal defense team that Ma'ruf had exercised bias in issuing a recommendation about the governor’s alleged blasphemy.

During the eighth hearing of Ahok’s blasphemy trial on Tuesday, lawyer Humphrey Djemat claimed Ma’ruf, who testified as a witness, received a phone call from Yudhoyono on Oct. 6.

That was one day before a meeting between executives of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and Agus, who is running in the Jakarta gubernatorial election with Sylviana Murni, took place at the NU headquarters. (ebf)