President Orders Police Chief to ‘Find Attacker Immediately’
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Kompas/Anita Yossihara
National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian shows a police sketch of the man suspected to have carried out an attack on Commission Eradication Commission (KPK) investigator Novel Baswedan. The sketch was shown at a press conference after a meeting with President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace complex in Jakarta, Monday (31/7).
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has ordered National Police chief Gen. (Pol.) Tito Karnavian to immediately uncover the perpetrator of the acid attack against an investigator of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Novel Baswedan. The National Police have just completed a facial sketch of the suspected offender. However, it is considered they were too slow to come up with the sketch, and the police are seen as not serious about find the perpetrator and the mastermind behind the attack on Novel.
Tito presented the police sketch of Novel’s suspected attacker for the first time after a closed meeting with President Jokowi at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, Monday (31/7) afternoon. "The President has asked the National Police to thoroughly investigate Novel\'s case by arresting the perpetrator. Immediately," said presidential spokesman Johan Budi SP.
Tito came to the Palace at about 2:20 p.m. specifically to meet the President\'s call. "This (sketch) is only two days old. This comes after we continuously reviewed the impressions with witnesses to obtain a good result, that the sketch does indeed resemble the perpetrator the witnesses saw," said Tito. He explained that by Monday, the police had questioned 59 people, examined about 50 surveillance cameras (CCTV) at a maximum 1-kilometer radius from the scene, and visited 100 more chemical stores that sold mercury or liquefied acid.
According to Tito, developing a sketch based on witness’s statements is important. The witnesses saw a motorcyclist standing near Al Ihsan Mosque in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, five minutes before Novel was doused with the liquefied acid.
"We also cooperated with AFP, the Australian [Federal] Police, and then we reconstructed the perpetrator’s face using a computer program until we arrived at this one," Tito said.
Involvement of a general
Regarding the information Novel had provided, he claimed a police general was behind the attack, Tito said, and that a joint investigation team would be formed with the National Police and the KPK to look into this. The team would soon leave for Singapore to ask for details directly from Novel.
Separately, when contacted in Singapore, Novel asked why the police sketch of the perpetrator had been developed now. Novel said that the sketch would not have much impact in uncovering the perpetrator of the acid attack. "Logically, the police can make the sketch from witnesses right after an incident. This is if they are serious. In this case, the sketch was made two months and two weeks afterwards. What have the police been doing so far?" he said.
Novel was pessimistic that the police would dare identifying the perpetrator, let alone the mastermind behind the attack. "I actually view the effort to cooperate with the KPK as a way to legitimize a particular officer in the National Police to hold back this case, including its executor. It’ll all be held back, be covered up," he said.
Novel added, it could also be that the National Police chief\'s effort to coordinate with the KPK was to report the alleged involvement of a National Police officer believed to be behind the attack against him. "It’s possible that members of the police have reported to the National Police chief that a general was believed to have received bribes, so that they want to coordinate with the KPK on a corruption case," he said.
KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah said the President’s attention to the case was a good sign that the perpetrator of the attack would be arrested soon.
House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Fadli Zon from the Gerindra faction also considered the National Police was slow to investigate the case. Fadli said it even gave the impression that there was an intention to cover it up.
"In other cases, the police can move quickly, but for this one, they seem to be slow and there is an impression of not being transparent, that there is something being deliberately covered up," Fadli said.
House Deputy Speaker Agus Hermanto from the Democratic Party faction also thought the handling of Novel\'s case was slow. "The complexity of this issue has to be addressed comprehensively so that, I believe, a fact-finding team [...] is necessary. If not, it will take longer. When will all be revealed?" he said.
According to Amnesty International Indonesia director Usman Hamid, the President should form a fact-finding team because it had been more than 111 days since the attack on Novel, but there were no signs that the National Police were capable of identifying the perpetrator.
"There is a possibility that Novel\'s case is inseparable from political affairs. He was attacked because he investigated high-ranking officials of the government and the House in corruption cases," said Usman.
