TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
SBY dissapointed over 'unresponsiveness' to his wiretapping complaint
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Democratic Party chairman Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (right) and party secretary-general Hinca Pandjaitan wave to the audience during the party's 2017 national executives meeting in Jakarta on Tuesday. (Antara/Akbar Nugroho Gumay)
F
ormer president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has expressed disappointment over what he says is a lack of response to a complaint he made over the alleged wiretapping of a phone conversation he recently had with Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) leader Ma'ruf Amin.
"Law enforcers have not responded properly to the allegedly politically motivated wiretapping," Yudhoyono, the Democratic Party chairman, told a gathering of party executives at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) in South Jakarta on Tuesday evening.
The legal team of Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama claimed during a hearing of his blasphemy trial that they had evidence that Yudhoyono and Ma'ruf were involved in a telephone conversation in which the former reportedly urged the cleric to issue an edict declaring that Ahok had committed blasphemy.
(Read Also: BIN denies giving intelligence data to Ahok)
Ahok will compete against Yudhoyono's eldest son Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono in the Feb. 15 Jakarta gubernatorial election.
National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian has denied that the force had wiretapped Yudhoyono’s phone.
Agus also previously echoed his father's complaint, saying illegal wiretapping could undermine democracy.
"We are seeking justice. All Indonesians could experience such a thing, couldn’t they?" he said during a campaign event on Friday.
One of Ahok's defense lawyers, Humphrey Djemat, however, said that evidence of two people having a telephone conversation was not necessarily in the form of a wiretapped recording. (bbs)
