Guess What? AM Fatwa

Political reporters who were busy covering the latest news in the House of Representatives/People's Consultative Assembly (DPR/MPR) building on Thursday sensed something unusual when the National Mandate Party (PAN) deputy chairman, AM Fatwa, called a news conference.

This time Fatwa was not accompanied by other party executives, but by the parents of the "queen of ecstasy", Zarima Mirafsur.

And this time, Fatwa did not talk about President Abdurrahman Wahid's overseas trips or his alleged involvement in the Bulog and Brunei financial scandals.

Instead, Fatwa announced that the party will sue GAMMA weekly for libel because of a story alluding to intimate relations between Zarima and PAN chairman Amien Rais in its latest issue.

In the article, titled "The Alluring Body of Zarima and Political Terror", the magazine claimed that, during the General Session of the MPR in October 1999 Zarima and Amien Rais both stayed at the Mulia Hotel and that at one point she contacted Amien Rais there, Antara reported.

According to Fatwa, the article went so far as implying that Amien Rais and Zarima eventually developed a relationship so close that it resulted in the birth of a baby, Nikita Chairunnisa.

Fatwa stressed there was a malicious conspiracy among certain parties who had used the magazine to conduct a character assassination of Amien Rais. "It is alluded to that Zarima's baby was fathered by Amien Rais. A very malicious conspiracy," he said.

According to Fatwa, he had consulted both Amien Rais and Zarima, who outrightly rejected the magazine's article as nonsense.