JAKARTA — Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto dismissed his chief of staff on Wednesday, with the presidential office saying the conduct under scrutiny could amount to treason. The dismissal came one day after the official was arrested alongside two senior police officers on suspicion of wiretapping the president, cabinet ministers and others.

Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who is not related to the president, was among three serving police officers detained and accused of illegally tapping the phones of the president, journalists, politicians, business people and others from 2025 to this year. Mr. Listyo had served five years as national police chief before becoming the president's chief of staff last month.

"This was, of course, carried out by certain rogue individuals, and we are also of the view that what was done may already fall into a category that can be considered an act tending toward treason," presidential spokesperson Prasetyo Hadi told reporters in announcing the dismissal.

"It also tends toward acts that endanger state interests and the safety of the nation's leadership, including the safety of the head of state," he said.

Prabowo Under Pressure

The arrests land as Mr. Prabowo contends with challenges on multiple fronts: a slumping approval rating amid discontent over his policies, and a struggle to restore investor confidence amid record stock market selloffs, a declining currency and warnings of an equities market downgrade by index provider MSCI.

Indonesia's senior minister for legal affairs, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said the government has yet to determine the motive for the wiretapping.

Late on Tuesday, police said the suspects were being investigated for unlawful wiretaps on the president, state officials, the media, politicians, business people, and leaders of mass organizations and non-governmental groups. According to police, the suspects orchestrated the wiretaps without a formal request from investigators and had last month ordered electronic records of their monitoring activities deleted.

Authorities initially identified the suspects only by the letters of their names. 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 national police educational institution. Reuters could not immediately contact the three suspects or their lawyers.

Analyst View

Political analyst Yanuar Nugroho, a visiting senior fellow at Singapore's Yusof Ishak Institute, said the chief of staff role under President Prabowo had diminished in importance, and that Mr. Listyo may have been given the job to take him away from the crucial post of national police chief.

Mr. Prabowo needs a police chief he can trust, and Mr. Listyo "is not the one," Mr. Yanuar said, adding that Mr. Listyo is known as a loyalist of former President Joko Widodo.

— Reuters