Unless you have been living under a rock for the past month, you heard about the incident on September 30 in which a Japanese pornographic film was briefly broadcast on a huge Videotron billboard in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta. In fact, the billboard was located right by the South Jakarta Mayor’s office.
Police eventually arrested a man, identified as SAR, who confessed to “hacking” into the billboards operating system and putting the porn up as a prank (SAR claims he got the password to access the system after the billboard’s operators accidentally displayed the system’s login password). For violating Indonesian laws on immorality and the Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE), SAR could face up to a 7-year prison sentence and a fine of Rp 15 billion.
The family SAR have not spoken publicly about the incident but it was recently confirmed by South Jakarta Mayor that his parents had come to his office to apologize for the incident.
That apology did not do much to sway the feelings of Jakarta Police Special Criminal Investigation Director Fadil Imran, who is handling the case. He questioned why the apology was not made publicly.
“Why apologize just to the government of South Jakarta, just because the Videotron is located close to their office?” Fadil said yesterday as quoted by Liputan 6.
Fadil said the apology should have been carried out openly so that more people could see it, which might lead the courts to show SAR leniency.
As it is, Fadil said the apology did not affect his ongoing investigation and that SAR would still be punished for his crimes.
