Indonesia’s military is sending more than 20,000 troops and personnel into Jakarta, its capital, on the same morning that President Prabowo Subianto sacked his chief of staff over an alleged wiretapping operation that targeted the president himself.
The two developments landed within hours of each other on Wednesday, 4 November, turning a police investigation into a crisis of trust at the top of the world’s fourth-most-populous country. The military insists the deployment is routine. The timing, for many Indonesians watching troops arrive in the capital, will be hard to separate from the scandal.
According to the navy operations assistant, Vice Admiral Yayan Sofiyan, the deployment began on Monday with 2,100 personnel already stationed in Jakarta. Troops from outside the capital were due to start arriving on Wednesday, bringing the total to 20,980, with a further 13,140 personnel on standby. The force includes marine and navy units, training centres and naval bases from Java and Lampung province.
Armed forces spokesperson Major General Muhammad Nas described the movement as standard procedure for maintaining national security and territorial integrity. Authorities have not confirmed any connection between the deployment and the wiretapping investigation. Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung said the provincial government supported the central government’s efforts to maintain security in the capital.
The arrests that set it off
Late on Tuesday, Indonesian police announced that three senior police generals were suspects in an alleged illegal wiretapping operation, and that they had been detained on Sunday. The most senior is Listyo Sigit Prabowo — not a relative of the president — who served as Indonesia’s national police chief for five years before becoming head of the Presidential Staff Office, known by its Indonesian initials KSP, just last month.
The other two suspects named in media reports are Inspector General Ahrie Sonta Nasution, head of the national police legal division, and Inspector General Eko Hadi Santoso, a senior officer at the national police education institution. A fourth general is being questioned as a witness. The three suspects are being held at national police headquarters in Jakarta.
Police say the alleged wiretaps took place between 2025 and 2026, while Listyo was still police chief, and were ordered without following proper procedure. The alleged targets went far beyond the president: cabinet ministers, politicians, journalists, civil society leaders and business executives are all said to have been swept up. Investigators also allege that electronic records of the monitoring were ordered deleted last month. The suspects face charges including unlawful wiretapping and unauthorised deletion of electronic data, carrying up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
These are allegations, not findings; none of the three has been convicted.
Sacked on Wednesday morning, “treason” mentioned by noon
On Wednesday morning, President Prabowo signed a decree dismissing Listyo from the Presidential Staff Office. State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi announced the decision at the Presidential Palace in central Jakarta, and said Lieutenant General Ariyo Windutomo would serve as acting head of the office.
Prasetyo did not soften the language. “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,” he told reporters.
He also said the president was deeply concerned. Indonesia’s senior minister for legal affairs, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said the government had yet to determine a motive.
Why this matters beyond Indonesia
For a global reader, the shock is not only that a president’s phone may have been tapped. It is who is accused of tapping it: the man who ran the country’s police for five years, and who, until Wednesday morning, sat at the centre of the presidential office.
The inclusion of journalists and civil society figures among the alleged targets gives the case a second dimension. Surveillance of reporters is not an internal personnel matter; it goes to whether critics of power can report and organise without being watched.
There is also a market dimension. Prabowo, who took office in 2024, was already facing pressure over a slumping approval rating, a falling currency and investor nerves — index provider MSCI has already been pressing for Indonesia’s removal from a key emerging-market index. A capital full of troops, however routine the military says the deployment is, rarely calms those nerves.
What we still do not know
Officials have not said how long the troops will stay in Jakarta, nor whether the deployment is linked to the investigation. They have not named a motive, and they have not said whether more arrests are coming. Until that question is answered, Jakarta will be watching two things at once: the soldiers arriving in its streets, and the court case that will decide whether the men accused of tapping the president’s phone did so, and for whom.
