Mugiyanto Sipin was part of a student movement demanding military-backed dictator Suharto resign in 1998 when soldiers turned up at his home and abducted him.
"Every time I didn't give a satisfactory answer they would beat me up," Mugiyanto, as he is known, told the Voice of America in 2019.
"All I could think about was 'I'm dead,'" he said.
Prabowo Subianto, then a powerful special forces commander and the son-in-law of Suharto, was stood down from the Indonesian military later in 1998 for his alleged role in the forced disappearances of democracy activists during that year.
Some, like Mugiyanto, were returned to their families. Many remain missing.
Mr Subianto has long denied widespread allegations of human rights abuses and said during a debate last year that "the people who were detained, the political prisoners who I allegedly kidnapped, are now on my side, defending me".
Mr Subianto was inaugurated as Indonesia's president on Sunday, and on the next day Mugiyanto was sworn in as Deputy Minister for Human Rights in Mr Subianto's cabinet.
"If there's any kind of signature move by Prabowo it's turning his victims into his closest allies," said Jacqui Baker, a politics and security expert at Murdoch University's Indo-Pacific Research Centre.
"This is something that Prabowo has been so incredibly successful at: convincing people to break away from what you'd assume to be their natural allies and putting them in his camp."
Mugiyanto, who in the decades since 1998 had established a reputation as a human rights advocate, worked as a presidential adviser to Mr Subianto's predecessor Joko Widodo.
The ABC has contacted Mugiyanto and the Ministry of Law and Human Rights for comment.
Prabowo's 'fat cabinet'
Alongside Mugiyanto were 108 other ministers and deputy ministers inaugurated on Monday — one of the largest number in Indonesia's history.
The cabinet of Mr Widodo had just 34 ministers and 18 deputy ministers. Mr Widodo's son Gibran Rakabuming was sworn in as Mr Subianto's vice-president on Sunday.
University of Melbourne Indonesian studies lecturer Monika Winarnita said the mega cabinet, and the inclusion of figures like Mugiyanto, was reflective of an Indonesian political culture of needing consensus — at the expense of genuine opposition.
"It's not a debate. It's always about consensus," she said of policymaking in Indonesia.
Murdoch's Dr Baker agreed, stating that Mr Subianto's was a "compromise cabinet".
"Prabowo sees his role as uniting Indonesia's elite, in order to advance under his unique, kind of, kingly leadership."
Indonesia's incumbent finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has been reappointed to oversee Mr Subianto's agenda, which includes achieving an economic growth rate of 8 per cent in his first term and providing free meals to school children.
"We as leaders must also see that there are still many of our brothers and sisters who are below the poverty line," said Mr Subianto at the inauguration of his cabinet.
"There are still too many children who go to school without breakfast and without clothes."
Luhut Pandjaitan, an influential figure in Mr Widodo's administrations and himself a former military general, was named head of Indonesia's National Economic Council under Mr Subianto.
"I estimate that this fat cabinet will only be able to work agilely in the next 6-12 months," Nadirsyah Hosen, an associate professor at Melbourne Law School and influential figure in Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation Nahdlatul Ulama, wrote on social media.
"An extraordinary budget is needed for the new ministerial posts."
Anticipated growing military influence on politics
Mr Subianto's human rights record saw him blacklisted from Australia until 2014 — a ban that was lifted before his visit to the country in 2019 when he was Mr Widodo's defence minister.
Human rights advocates fear that under the new president, Indonesia's democratic institutions will continue to be weakened and the influence of the military on politics will expand.
"There will be no political opposition," Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid told the ABC.
"If you look at the last couple of weeks, students have been trying to go on the streets to protest and they were blocked by the security apparatus, they were blocked by intelligence officers.
"It's really a new era of a hybrid regime — of undemocratic Indonesia."
New members of Mr Subianto's cabinet who are active members of the military have not been required to step down.
The Indonesian military deployed 100,000 soldiers in Jakarta over the weekend, including snipers and anti-riot units, to provide security for Mr Subianto's inauguration.
Just 1,900 military personnel were deployed for Mr Widodo's inauguration in 2014.
Having just returned from a trip to Jakarta, Dr Baker said there was a "palpable sense from the military that this was their time".
She said there was "uniform agreement" across her contacts in the military that the powerful institution would make a play for greater power during the Prabowo era.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who went to Jakarta for the inauguration on behalf of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, said in a statement: "There is no relationship more important to Australia than our relationship with Indonesia."
"Our two countries are working closely together in shaping a peaceful, stable, and prosperous region that is respectful of sovereignty," Mr Marles said.
"The Australian government looks forward to working closely with President Prabowo and his new administration on shared economic, security and human development priorities."
