On top of his ongoing blasphemy case, Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has also been the target of several more lawsuits from various groups, including a civil lawsuit from FPI leader Habib “Fitsa Hats” Novel for Rp 204 million to cover the cost of his own private investigation into Ahok’s blasphemy case.
A much, much larger civil lawsuit of Rp 470 billion was filed soon after by lawyer group Advokat Cinta Tanah Air (ACTA), who argued that Ahok owes that much as compensation to Muslims for all the supposed material losses his blasphemy case has caused. ACTA, which is closely linked to FPI, said that they filed the class action lawsuit on behalf of all Muslims in Indonesia.
But their lawsuit has hit a legal dead end, which prompted ACTA to withdraw it.
“It turns out that, until now, the judge has not accepted having our lawsuit tacked on to Ahok’s ongoing [blasphemy] case. So we didn’t think it was necessary to continue the lawsuit,” said ACTA representative Ali Hakim Lubis, as quoted by Vivanews yesterday.
Ali did not say why their lawsuit was rejected by the judge.
If we were to guess, it’s probably because their lawsuit made no sense whatsoever from a legal standpoint. Hopefully it will just be a matter of time before a judge throws Habib Novel’s lawsuit against Ahok out the window as well.
