Indonesia President Sacks His Own Chief of Staff Over Phone Tapping
Photo: Reuters via Deccan Herald
Indonesia's president has sacked his own chief of staff, a day after the man was arrested on suspicion of tapping the president's phone. Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who ran the national police for five years before taking the top staff job last month, now faces claims his team spied on ministers, journalists, politicians and business leaders, and the government says what he did may amount to treason.
President Prabowo Subianto dismissed Listyo on Wednesday. Police had announced the arrest a day earlier, along with two other senior police officers, over claims they tapped phones without any legal basis from 2025 into this year. The two others were named in local media as Ahrie Sonta Nasution, head of the national police legal division, and Eko Hadi Santoso, a senior officer at the police education institute.
Presidential spokesman Prasetyo Hadi did not soften the charge when he announced the sacking. He said the tapping was carried out by rogue individuals, and that it may already fall into a category that can be seen as tending towards treason. He added that it endangered state interests and the safety of the country's leadership, including the safety of the head of state, Al Jazeera reported.
The claims are wide. Police said late on Tuesday that the suspects were being probed over unlawful taps on the president, state officials, media workers, politicians, businesspeople and leaders of mass organisations and non-government groups. The top detective in the national police, Asep Safrudin, said the operation had no legal basis and no proper inquiry process behind it. Police also say the suspects ordered files holding intercepted calls to be deleted last month, in an apparent bid to hide what they had done.
Listyo has not spoken in public about the claims, and Reuters could not reach him or his lawyers. The government says the motive is still not known. Yusril Ihza Mahendra, the senior minister for legal affairs, said investigators have yet to work out why the phones were tapped.
The scandal lands at a rough time for Prabowo, who took office in 2024. His approval ratings have fallen to a record low, he reshuffled his cabinet for a seventh time last month, and markets and the currency have been under strain. Students and others have protested in recent weeks over the economy and what they see as growing authoritarianism and corruption. One analyst said Listyo may have been moved to the chief of staff job to take him away from the powerful police chief post, and that Prabowo needs a police chief he can trust.
Also on Wednesday, the military sent more than 20,000 troops and personnel into Jakarta. Officials did not confirm a link to the arrests, and the armed forces spokesman called the movement standard procedure for national security. Under Indonesia's criminal code, the maximum penalty for treason against the president is death by firing squad, Channel NewsAsia reported, though no charge of that kind has yet been laid out in court.
The case echoes other sudden falls from grace this year, from the Spanish minister who quit after deadly train crashes to the street level anger in the Bangladesh garment wage protests, and it comes as voters elsewhere weigh trust in their leaders, as in the South Africa local elections under way today.
Sources
Al Jazeera: Indonesian president's chief of staff dismissed over alleged wiretapping
Reuters: Indonesia arrests chief of staff, top policemen for alleged wiretapping of president
Police will now press on with the probe while Jakarta waits to learn the motive behind the taps and whether more names follow.
#Indonesia #Prabowo #Wiretapping #AsiaNews #BreakingNews #PakistanNews #Jakarta
Comments
Post a Comment