JAKARTA, Indonesia – An anti-corruption investigator, Novel Baswedan, was walking home from his neighborhood mosque in Jakarta three years ago when two men approached him on a motorcycle and threw acid on his face. The attack left him blind in one eye and half blind in the other.
On Thursday night, a court found two police officers, Rahmat Kadir Mahulette and Ronny Bugis, guilty of carrying out the April 2017 attack. But Novel, 43, lead investigator for the respected Corruption Eradication Commission from Indonesia, he believes the attack was ordered by someone more powerful, someone he investigated, but does not know who.
Novel is a hero to the public for his willingness to investigate top politicians and police officials, including several who have gone to prison, in a campaign to eradicate the high-level corruption that has plagued Indonesia for decades.
He and his supporters contend that the two low-ranking officers were simply lackeys or scapegoats, and that their arrest and prosecution were intended to ease pressure on the police to find who ordered the assault. Before the attack, officers had no apparent connection to Mr. Novel or interest in the activities of the anti-corruption commission.
“The investigation into this crime should not stop with these two defendants alone,” Novel’s attorneys said in a statement Wednesday before the verdict was announced. “We believe there is an intellectual perpetrator behind this crime that the police do not want to reveal.”
In a statement posted to Twitter on Friday, Novel criticized Indonesian President Joko Widodo for failing to ensure that police conducted a thorough investigation to find those responsible for the attack.
Mr. Novel suggested that the unidentified mastermind remains free and may be ready to attack again.
“The lesson is that Indonesia is really dangerous for people fighting corruption,” he wrote.
During the trial, Mr. Mahulette admitted in court that he had thrown acid at Mr. Novel and said that he viewed the investigator, a former police officer, as a “traitor” because he investigated the police officers. Prosecutors said Mr. Mahulette was motivated in part by Mr. Novel’s role in what was then a four-year case, the conviction of Police Inspector General Djoko Susilo in an equipment acquisition scandal.
Prosecutors argued that Mr. Mahulette intended to teach Mr. Novel a lesson by splashing sulfuric acid on his body, but accidentally hit him in the face.
the The claim that the acid hit Novel’s face by accident caused widespread mockery on social media last month.
Novel and his legal team have criticized prosecutors, saying they did not present evidence found at the scene or call three known eyewitnesses to testify.
A panel of three judges sentenced Mr. Mahulette to two years in prison and Mr. Ronny, who drove the motorcycle used in the attack, to 18 months. The prosecution had asked for a one-year sentence for each.
Mr. Novel’s legal team and human rights defenders asked President Joko to form an independent commission to investigate the attack.
“It was a trial trial,” said Usman Hamid, Amnesty International’s executive director for Indonesia. “For Novel and many of us who have been following the case closely, the trial is apparently designed to influence public opinion rather than guarantee justice.”
The attack on Mr. Novel caused great public outrage, and the lack of progress in the case was a persistent embarrassment for the police until the two officers were arrested in December.
Novel told reporters after the attack that he had investigated so many powerful people that it was difficult for him to know which of them might have sought revenge.
Mr. Novel underwent repeated surgeries to repair his left eye, which turned white with acid. The judges, in their 232-page statement of findings, said he had lost all vision in that eye and half of his right eye.
As a mitigating factor in the sentence, the judges noted that Mr. Mahulette had diluted the sulfuric acid instead of using it with full force because he had no intention of causing serious injury.
The judges took turns reading their conclusions, verdict and sentence aloud, which took more than eight hours in total.
The Corruption Eradication Commission was established in 2003. It is credited with great success and is held in higher esteem than most other institutions in the country, including the police and the judiciary, which are considered riddled with corruption.
The president, Mr. Joko, sparked widespread protests last year when he moved to curb the agency’s autonomy by installing a supervisory board and limiting the commission’s power to intercept suspects and hire independent staff.
Dera Menra Sijabat reported from Jakarta and Richard C. Paddock reported from Bangkok.
