Jakarta – Amnesty International Asia-Pacific Advocacy Manager Fransisco Bencosme paid a visit to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) building on Friday April 26.
The visit was to assist independent investigation efforts into the acid attack on senor KPK investigator Novel Baswedan two years ago. Bencosme said that they plan to take the Baswedan case before the US Congress.
“In this case we have access to policy makers in the United States through Congress channels, parliamentary channels, to mainstream what has occurred in the situation faced by the KPK and Novel Baswedan in Indonesia”, said Bencosme at the KPK building in Jakarta on Friday.
According to Bencosme, the Baswedan case needs to be taken before the international community because Indonesia has made international commitments to monitoring the anti-corruption efforts which have not borne fruit over President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s last five years in office.
“The acid attack suffered by senior investigator Novel Baswedan was a political act which is of great concern, since Jokowi has been in power over the last five years the commitments to conduct monitoring in the anti-corruption sector have not borne fruit”, he said.
Meanwhile Baswedan himself hopes that Amnesty International’s arrival will pressure the Indonesian government to prioritise solving the attack on the KPK.
“With pressure from the international community we hope that in the future the government will make this an important issue and make solving it a priority. This is what I want to convey and I want to express my thanks to Amnesty International”, said Baswedan.
Up until now the acid attack on Baswedan has still not been solved and the perpetrators and masterminds behind the attack are still roaming free.
Almost nothing has been heard about developments in the case since Indonesian National Police Chief (Kapolri) General Tito Karnavian took the step of forming a special joint investigation team into the case in early January.
The special team, which was formed in the lead up to the first presidential debate that took up the themes of law, human rights, corruption and terrorism, has not performed as expected by the public which has been urging Widodo to form an independent fact finding team (TGPF) ever since the attack took place. (sah)
Notes
The acid attack on senior KPK investigator Novel Baswedan, which took place on April 11, 2017 as he was walking home after Friday prayers, is widely believed to be related to an investigation which Baswedan and the KPK were conducting into dozens of senior politicians involved in the e-KTP electronic ID card corruption scandal. Under mounting public pressure, in December 2018 the government formed a Joint Fact Finding Team (TGPF) to investigate the case involving the KPK, experts and senior police officials – despite the fact that on several occasions Baswedan has said that he suspects a senior “police general” was the behind the attack – and the very reason many believe police have made no progress in the case.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “Amnesty International Bawa Kasus Novel ke Kongres AS”.]
