Kaligis said that before Suharto stepped down, there was a lot of foreign media news about his client’s corruption.
Jakarta, internasionalpos.com
Lawyer OC Kaligis responded to news in one of the well-known media regarding pressure from civil society based on the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) report regarding the corruption of the 7th President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).
“Public pressure has given rise to two reactions, pros and cons.
But for that I want to share my empirical experience when I was the attorney for the 2nd President Soeharto,” said OC Kaligis in Jakarta, Monday.
Kaligis said that before Suharto stepped down, there was a lot of foreign media news about his client’s corruption.
Even the Asia edition of the Times magazine, May 24 1999 volume 153 number 20 page 131, published a story entitled “Not one Cent Abroad” and included Suharto having money abroad.
He added that as a legal advisor he questioned the truth of the news, so Pak Harto firmly answered that the news was not true and gave Kaligis and other lawyers power of attorney.
Kaligis then sued Times magazine and the final result of the lawsuit was that the Times news was proven to be slander.
Pak Harto even gave open authority to the Minister of Law, Prof. Muladi and Attorney General Andi Ghalib at that time88 to go to Switzerland or any country abroad to track Pak Harto’s wealth, so the results of the tracking were nil.
However, just to review the history of the Times news, Times journalists were in the Kaligis office for about two weeks to publish the news.
Meanwhile, as professional journalists, Times journalists’ questions come from all directions just to make the news balanced (cover both sides).
So what must be asked is why the corruption of President Jokowi and his family only became widely reported after he stepped down.
(***adit)
