Don't talk so much, Wiranto tells Ghalib
Don't talk so much, Wiranto tells Ghalib
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces
Commander Gen. Wiranto on Wednesday loudly asked Attorney General
Lt. Gen. Andi M. Ghalib to stop talking to journalists when the
latter was responding to questions about the progress of
investigations into former president Soeharto.
"Ghalib, don't talk too much," Wiranto shouted to him as he
was surrounded by journalists before attending a Cabinet meeting
on economic affairs at the Bina Graha presidential office.
Several ministers, including Minister of Industry and Trade
Rahardi Ramelan and Minister of Information Muhammad Yunus burst
into laughter upon hearing Wiranto.
"They're overwhelming me, Pak," a surprised Ghalib replied and
continued answering the press.
Journalists asked him about the statement of Soeharto's
defense lawyers who urged him on Tuesday to stop the inquiry into
their client's allegedly ill-gotten wealth.
"He has committed no offense involving criminal corruption nor
has he broken any law," Juan Felix Tampubolon, one of Soeharto's
lawyers had said.
"It's a lawyer's job to help free his client. Their request is
natural. It is different from an attorney's job," Ghalib said
when Wiranto unexpectedly interrupted him.
As soon as he arrived at the meeting hall, Ghalib sought out
the journalist of the Merdeka daily.
"Are you from Merdeka?" he asked a protocol officer.
Ghalib told Minister of Communications Giri Suseno
Hadihardjono that he was upset with the newspaper's headline
which stated that he was 'butchered for half a day' during his
hearing with the House of Representatives (DPR) on Tuesday.
In that hearing not less than 15 members of the House
Commission I on political affairs and security queried him about
reports of a leaked telephone conversation, supposedly between
Ghalib and President B.J. Habibie. Some of the legislators even
told him that he did not have the guts to probe Soeharto's
alleged corruption.
"The hearing proceeded normally and I was not treated as
Merdeka reported," he said to Giri.
He smiled and agreed when a journalist said Ghalib had passed
the toughest test when receiving last year a chicken from
Trisakti University students for his lack of guts in probing
Soeharto's alleged corruption.
Wiranto himself was reluctant to talk to journalists and asked
them to speak to other Cabinet members.
"Please disperse from here," he told journalists. (prb)