Rizieq Shihab Claims To Be Called By Wiranto When In Saudi Arabia, Meets Budi Gunawan To Agree To Support Jokowi

Rizieq Shihab (DOK. VOI/Irfan Meidianto)

JAKARTA - The defendant in the case of the UMMI hospital swab test results, Rizieq Shihab admitted that he had been contacted and held a meeting with Indonesian officials. This happened when Rizieq was in Saudi Arabia.

Rizieq made this statement while reading the memorandum of defense or plea at the East Jakarta District Court, Thursday, June 10.

Initially, Rizieq said that in his first year in Mecca, he was contacted by General (Ret) Wiranto, who at that time served as Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs. The communication took place at the end of May 2017.

"He (Wiranto) invited my friends and me to build an agreement to keep the door open for dialogue and reconciliation", Rizieq said at the trial, Thursday, June 10.

Not long ago, in early June 2017, Rizieq again met with state officials. At that time, he met General (Ret) Budi Gunawan at a hotel in the city of Jeddah.

It's just that Rizieq did not go into detail about the conversations at the meeting. He only confirmed that the meeting resulted in an agreement.

"The result of the meeting was very good, we made a written agreement in black and white which was signed by me and the State Intelligence Service of Operations Commander, Major General TNI (Ret) Agus Suharto, in front of the Head of State Intelligence Service and his team, then the letter was taken to Jakarta and witnessed and signed also handled by the General Chairperson of the Central MUI, KH Ma'ruf Amin, who is now the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia", said Rizieq.

"Among the contents of the agreement are to stop all legal cases for me (Rizieq) and friends so that there is no more slander of criminalization, and agree to prioritize dialogue rather than mobilizing masses, and are ready to support all policies of the Jokowi government as long as they do not conflict with the teachings of Islam and the Indonesian constitution", he continued.

In fact, Rizieq also mentioned that he met with General (Ret) Tito Karnavian, who at that time served as the National Police Chief. The meeting took place twice in 2018 and 2019.

During the meeting, Rizieq emphasized three things, including stopping religious blasphemy, stopping the rise of the PKI, and stopping the sale of state assets to foreigners and foreigners.

However, the deal ran aground in the middle of the road. According to him, this was due to a large-scale black intelligence operation that succeeded in influencing the Saudi Arabian government.

"So I was banned or exiled and could not return to Indonesia. I don't know whether the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Wiranto and the Head of State Intelligence Service, Budi Gunawan, and the National Police Chief Tito Karnavian betrayed the dialogue and agreement", he said.