Indonesia’s President Sacks His Chief Of Staff Over Palace Wiretaps As 20,000 Troops Deploy In Jakarta

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, sacked his chief of staff on Wednesday, a day after the man was arrested in a wiretapping scandal that the government said pointed to treason — and as the military mobilised more than 20,000 troops in the capital. Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who is not related to the president, was among three senior police officers detained on Tuesday, accused of illegally tapping the phones of the president himself, cabinet ministers, journalists, politicians, government officials and business people since early 2025.

The illegal wiretaps were carried out by “rogue individuals” whose actions indicated treason, presidential spokesman Prasetyo Hadi said. But the government’s own senior legal affairs minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said investigators had not found evidence of treason, and that the motive behind the alleged surveillance remained unclear. Investigators allege the suspects ordered the deletion of intercepted communications in late October to conceal the operation. The two other detained officers were named in local reporting as Ahrie Sonta Nasution, head of the National Police’s legal division, and Eko Hadi Santoso, a senior instructor at the police education institute. Lieutenant General Ariyo Windutomo was appointed acting chief of staff.

A Police Chief Weeks Into A Palace Job

The accused man’s trajectory is the scandal’s sharpest edge. Listyo served five years as chief of the National Police — appointed under Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko Widodo, whose son Gibran Rakabuming Raka is now vice president — and moved into the palace as chief of staff only last month. The alleged tapping spans his tenure at the head of the very force that polices surveillance law: investigators say the phones of the president, his ministers and a swath of public life were being listened to from early 2025.

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Troops In The Capital

The military said 20,980 personnel were involved in the Jakarta operation, with another 13,140 on standby, building from about 2,100 troops already in the capital on Monday. Troops were deployed to “safeguard and protect the stability of Indonesia’s security,” navy spokesman Tunggul said late Wednesday, adding that the deployment also related to upcoming training near Jakarta. Armed forces spokesman Major-General Muhammad Nas called the movement standard procedure for national security; the authorities have not established a connection between the troop movements and the wiretapping investigation. In a country with Indonesia’s history, 20,000 soldiers in the capital is a statement whether or not it is meant as one — and the palace, having accused its own chief of staff of treason in the morning, spent the evening insisting everything was routine.

What happens next is unwritten. The three officers remain in custody while investigators work through what was recorded, who ordered it and who listened; no formal charges have been detailed publicly, and Listyo has made no public statement. For Prabowo — a former army general who took office in October 2024 promising order after a career spent in and out of exile — the case is a test of who actually runs Indonesia’s security state. The accused chief of staff was a holdover appointee of the previous president, installed at the palace only weeks ago. Whether the wiretaps were a rogue operation, a factional weapon or something larger is the question now sitting in front of the investigators — and, with 20,000 troops in the capital, in front of the whole country.

Sources: Reuters, Jakarta, November 4, 2026 (via LA Post and DevDiscourse); Indonesian local media reporting of the detained officers’ identities, November 4, 2026.