Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has sacked his chief of staff after the former police chief was arrested on suspicion of illegally tapping the president’s phone, in a scandal that has shaken the top of the country’s security establishment.
Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who is not related to the president, was detained on Tuesday along with two other senior police officers. Police say the three are accused of carrying out unlawful interceptions of the president, cabinet ministers, politicians, journalists, businesspeople and leaders of civic organisations, beginning in early 2025 and continuing into this year.
Listyo had served as national police chief for five years before becoming the president’s chief of staff last month. His dismissal was announced on Wednesday by presidential spokesperson Prasetyo Hadi, who described the alleged wiretaps as the work of “rogue individuals” and said the conduct could be regarded as tending towards treason.
That characterisation was not fully shared by another senior minister. Yusril Ihza Mahendra, the senior minister for legal affairs, said the government had yet to determine a motive and had so far found no evidence linking the suspects to treason, stressing that the investigation remained at an early stage. The difference in emphasis underlines how much remains unproven: the men have been detained as suspects, not convicted, and the authorities have not publicly set out what, if anything, was done with any intercepted material.
Police have questioned 13 people and are investigating whether others were involved. Officers formally identified the three suspects only by their initials, but local media named the other two as Ahrie Sonta Nasution, head of the national police legal division, and Eko Hadi Santoso, a senior officer at the police education institution. The suspects are accused of offences including illegal interception, unauthorised access to electronic systems and deleting electronic data, which police said carry maximum prison terms of up to 10, six and eight years respectively. Reporting of the case has also alleged that files containing intercepted communications were ordered deleted in late October, in what investigators are said to suspect was an attempt to conceal evidence.
Separately, the military said thousands of troops were being mobilised in Jakarta to bolster security. A navy spokesperson said the deployment was intended to safeguard stability in the capital, but the authorities have not confirmed that it is connected to the wiretapping investigation, and that link should not be assumed.
The affair is a serious early test for Prabowo, who took office in October 2024, about two months before the alleged interceptions are said to have begun. It also raises difficult questions about oversight of Indonesia’s police and intelligence apparatus, and about the privacy of the journalists, politicians and civic leaders whose phones are alleged to have been targeted. For now, the central facts are stark: the president’s own chief of staff stands accused of listening in on the president himself.
Sources: Reuters, “Indonesia arrests chief of staff, top policemen for alleged wiretapping of president” (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/indonesia-arrests-chief-staff-top-policemen-alleged-wiretapping-president-2026-11-04/) and BusinessMirror, “Indonesia deploys troops to boost Jakarta’s security after generals’ arrest” (https://businessmirror.com.ph/2026/11/04/indonesia-deploys-troops-to-boost-jakartas-security-after-generals-arrest/).
