Jakarta, NU Online
The office of Vice President Jusuf Kalla is working on a defense strategy in response to slander charges recently filed by former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.

Gus Dur filed slander charges against Kalla over remarks made at a public student forum in Cibubur, East Jakarta, on April 9.

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During the Golkar Party student forum, Kalla said Gus Dur requested a sum of money from Kalla when he was still chairing the National Logistics Agency (Bulog).

Gus Dur was the then-president and Kalla held the posts of minister of trade, minister of industrial affairs and chief of Bulog.

Kalla said he had declined the request and that not long afterward he was fired from both his ministerial positions.

On Wednesday, Kalla's office acknowledged they were preparing to support the reopening of five-year-old legal proceedings against Gus Dur, based on a recommendation by a special committee of the House of Representatives.

"That's if (Gus Dur) insists on continuing with the (slander) charges," Kalla's office told detik.com on Wednesday.

Several vice presidential staff members have started to collect articles on the case and have even contacted a number of reporters for that purpose.

They have been circulating copies of a 1,254-page book containing Gus Dur's responses to the 2001 investigation proceedings concerning the Yanatera fund of Bulog and an aid fund from the sultan of Brunei Darussalam.

The scandal cases are known respectively as Buloggate and Bruneigate.

Buloggate involved an alleged theft of Rp 35 billion (US$3.5 million) from the National Logistics Agency.

And Bruneigate involved the alleged misuse of a $2 million donation from the sultan of Brunei.

Gus Dur's lawyer, Ikhsan Abdullah, who filed the slander charges at Jakarta Police Headquarters, on May 2, said, "The statement (by Kalla) has assaulted his (Gus Dur)'s dignity as a public figure and a former president."

Before filing the charges, Gus Dur had tried to settle the case by demanding Kalla clarify his statement within one week, but Kalla did not respond -- other than to say the case (Buloggate) had been settled by the House.

An unnamed source at the Jakarta Police has acknowledged its special crime division has prepared a team to follow up the House special committee's recommendation that legal proceedings against Gus Dur commence with the Buloggate case.

"Even the VP will not be able (to stop it), because the case is considered a criminal action and not just a complaint," the source said.

In 2001, the House special committee found strong indications that Gus Dur had instructed the disbursement of the non-budgetary funds in the Buloggate case.

The Buloggate and Bruneigate scandals eventually led to the fall of Gus Dur from the presidency in 2001. (tjp/dar)