Police hunted down a Balinese man after photos of him posing with what looked like an “AK-47” went viral.
Ketut Sri Wibawa, a Bali hotel security guard, uploaded the pictures to Facebook months ago on April 19, 2017, captioning the post in Indonesian, “for fun.”
Police say a number of people reported the photos to them, leading to Wibawa finally just being arrested in Nusa Dua on Oct. 13.
Upon raiding Wibawa’s home, police say that they found that the weapon pictured wasn’t a dangerous assault rifle after all, but just an airsoft gun that the man had borrowed from his neighbor.
However, the 37-year-old wasn’t off the hook. Police arrested him anyway for ‘stockpiling’ bladed weapons.
At the raid on the man’s house, police found he had all sorts of knives, spears, and swords.
When questioned, Wibawa said he had the weapons to “take care of himself,” police told reporters on Tuesday.
Wibawa technically committed no offense by having all the weapons, but his arrest was justified by Bali Police Criminal Investigation Unit Subdirectorate III, Supt. Made Sinar Bawa, as an “emergency,” who said police were deepening their investigation into the man.
“In this case, the suspect is being held by Bali Police not for ownership of an airsoft gun that resembles an AK-47. However, because he had knives everywhere. the reason, is just to keep watch on him,” Bawa said, as quoted by Tribun Bali.
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