Indonesian minister hits out at TV channel over documentary: report

"They have taken his image for free, then commercialised it. The man had received nothing," Siti Fadillah Supari was quoted saying by Detikcom news website after she met the 32-year-old Dede in a hospital in West Java.

Supari said that the Indonesian government would send a lawyer to Dede to help him recover his rights from the Discovery Channel.

The channel was not immediately available for comment.

Asked to comment on speculation Indonesia had barred Dede from travelling to the United States to receive treatment, she said: "The Indonesian government has yet to receive any request to bring him to the US. That's only a rumour."