Pertamina withdraws complaint against The Jakarta Post
The Jakarta Post Jakarta
State oil company PT Pertamina withdrew on Tuesday its lawsuit against The Jakarta Post after both sides met to discuss and clear up the misunderstanding arising from the daily's June 23 editorial.
Pertamina's lawyer Lucas said he submitted a letter to the National Police Headquarters on Tuesday morning informing them of their wish to withdraw the lawsuit.
"Everything has been clarified after we met with people from The Jakarta Post today. All problems have been settled and we have withdrawn the report," said Lucas.
The Jakarta Post offered to meet the Pertamina directors to get a direct clarification on the giant state oil company's policy of selling two supertankers, which have been a source of public controversy for the past month, the newspaper's editors said on Monday.
Pertamina President Ariffi Nawawi and three other members of the board of directors on Monday morning filed a complaint with the National Police, saying that the newspaper had slandered and tarnished their reputation in an editorial piece which appeared last Wednesday.
The editorial, entitled Tentacles of corruption commented on the controversy over the sale of two Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) which Pertamina had ordered from a South Korean shipbuilding company.
Lucas SH and Partners law firm, on behalf of PT Pertamina directors, sent on Friday, July 25 a summons to The Jakarta Post demanding than an apology for the editorial piece be published by 10 a.m. Monday to correct and revise the content of the article.
The Jakarta Post, in a statement on Monday, made it clear that it had written to the Pertamina directors and their lawyers, offering to meet and clarify the situation. The letter was sent by special couriers, and received in their respective offices around 7 a.m. on Monday.
"The letter invited the Directors and Commissioners of PT Pertamina to meet with us to clarify matters over The Jakarta Post's June 23 editorial which commented on the sale of Pertamina's two giant tankers.
"Since Pertamina's directors decided to file their complaint with the police anyway, The Jakarta Post on Monday appointed lawyers Denny Kailimang and Todung Mulya Lubis to represent it," the statement read.
The newspaper had also decided on Monday to take up the matter of the allegations of corruption with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) at a meeting planned at the latter's office on Tuesday afternoon, but that was dropped after the meeting with Pertamina on Tuesday morning.
"The editorial by The Jakarta Post was a compilation of all news and analysis that has been reported regarding the controversy over the sale of the giant tankers by Pertamina. The editorial is part of the (newspaper's) function in building a culture of greater transparency and accountability that has become our common commitment," the statement said.
In the letter to Pertamina, The Jakarta Post's Editor-in-Chief Raymond Toruan said the editorial essentially expressed the newspaper's "principal thinking in carrying out our professional duties; as a member of the press, we will continue to be loyal and pay attention to information and issues that are of concern to public interests, and are valuable to the life of the community, the nation and the state."
Lucas told reporters after filing the complaint with the police that the editorial "gives the impression that Pertamina directors had lied, and were always being dishonest, and this led to this controversy that has not been resolved to this day."
In response to a reporter's question, Lucas acknowledged that other newspapers and magazines had been reporting the controversy of the sale of the two tankers by Pertamina, but he made a distinction between news reports and an editorial.
"We don't have any problem with the news reports," he said.
"The Jakarta Post wrote it in the context of an editorial. So, it's very different."