Earlier this week, Time magazine published an exclusive interview with Novel Baswedan, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) senior investigator who was attacked with acid by unknown assailants on April 11. It was the first interview given by Novel since the attack (he is currently in Singapore undergoing treatment in the hopes of restoring his eyesight) and it included a new, explosive allegation about who might have been behind the attack.
“I’ve actually received information that a police general — a high level police official — was involved. At first I said the information was false. But now that it’s been two months and the case hasn’t been resolved, I said [to the person who made the allegation] the feeling is that the information is correct,” Novel said in the interview.
Indonesia’s chief of police, General Tito Karnavian, responded to the quote from Novel today by saying that law enforcement was still searching for the assailants behind the acid attack and said that Novel should be straightforward and give a name if he was going to make such an accusation.
“That’s important, what’s the name, what’s the proof?” Tito said at police headquarters today as quoted by Kompas.
Tito said that if Novel had any evidence to support the accusation, he guaranteed the police would investigate that person to the full extent of the law.
“But if there is no proof, I would be sorry to see that the institution of the police has been cast in a negative light,” Tito said, adding that the unsubstantiated accusation would generate speculation and suspicion.
The chief also said that Jakarta police investigators would go to Singapore to substantiate and clarify Novel’s statements in the interview.
Novel had previously stated his suspicions that the acid attack, which took place on the morning of April 11 by two unknown assailants on a motorbike as he returned home from praying at his mosque, was motivated by his work on a KPK corruption case.
The KPK is still in the midst of one of its biggest investigations ever after it accused dozens of high-level politicians of taking part in a scheme to rob the state of $170 million worth of misappropriated funds from the program for the country’s new electronic identity cards (e-KTP).
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