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Jakarta. Pressure continued to mount on Indonesia’s ailing National Police chief on Tuesday after a case was filed against him by a lawyer for allegedly “telling a public lie.”

National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri has previously claimed police were in possession of wiretapped phone conversations as evidence in a bribery case against two deputy chairmen of the respected Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) when in fact the recordings did not exist.

“There are no recordings so they simply have told a lie,” Sugeng Teguh Santoso told reporters after registering the case in the South Jakarta District Court. “Now we want the police chief and the attorney general to publicly admit that.”

There have been calls for both Bambang and Attorney General Hendarman Supandji to take responsibility for misleading the public into believing that police had wiretapped recordings implicating the KPK pair.

The accusations came at the height of an alleged conspiracy involving elements of the police and Attorney General’s Office to bring down the KPK. The National Police and AGO are perceived to be two of Indonesia’s most corrupt institutions.
 
The lawsuit demands that Bambang and Hendarman publish their apologies in five newspapers and on 11 television stations and pay Rp 10 million ($1,110) in damages.

“It’s not a big amount but we need the money to cover expenses of the legal proceedings until it reaches the Supreme Court,” said Sugeng.

Sugeng, who counts alleged case broker Ary Muladi among his clients, claimed that he represented a group called “People’s Voice Against Arbitrary Criminal Charges.”

In the wake of the case against the deputies, Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Samat Rianto, the attorney general told lawmakers late last year that police and prosecutors had secured recordings to prove the bribery claim.

The phone conversations allegedly involved suspected case broker Ary Muladi and mid-ranking anti-graft official Ade Rahardja. But when the judges in the graft trial of Anggodo Widjojo — who claimed to have paid anti-graft officials Rp 5.1 billion in bribes — ordered the recordings to be presented as evidence, police failed to respond.

They later admitted that what they had was the data record of phone calls but refused to clarify if the phone numbers involved really belonged to Ary and Ade.

The phone call records weren’t handed to the court either. “We have many witnesses to testify for us, including lawmakers, Ary Muladi and Ade Rahardja,” Sugeng said.

“And we plan to present Chandra and Bibit if they are willing to speak.”

Bambang has taken sick leave for a week, officials say, fueling speculation that a slew of scandals and public pressure has put him under severe strain.