“It’s not true that Pak Ahok will report Pak Ma’ruf to the police for his testimony at Tuesday’s hearing. Pak Ahok and his legal team will only report plaintiffs who have given improper testimony since his first trial,” Ahok’s campaign team secretary Ace Hasan Syadzily said in a written statement on Wednesday.

“Ma'ruf is not one of the plaintiffs [...] He was presented at the hearing as a witness in his capacity as MUI chairman, not as a representative of Nahdlatul Ulama [NU],” he asserted, referring to Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization.

(Read also: Dems reject conspiracy claim linking party's patron to MUI chairman)

During the governor’s eighth hearing on Tuesday, Ahok’s legal team accused Ma’ruf of bias when issuing a recommendation on the blasphemy allegations against Ahok.

According to the team, Ma’ruf had been influenced by Democratic Party patron and former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the issuance of a recommendation in which the council categorized Ahok’s speech that cited a Quranic verse as “blasphemous”.

The team claimed that Ma'ruf, who testified as a witness in the hearing, received a phone call from Yudhoyono on Oct. 6, one day before a meeting between NU executives and Dems-supported Jakarta gubernatorial candidate pair Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono-Sylviana Murni took place at the NU headquarters on Jl. Kramat Raya, Central Jakarta. Ma’ruf attended the meeting.

Ma’ruf, however, denied all accusations during the hearing. (ebf)

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