Court: Police miscommunication in activist acid attack case

A South Jakarta District Court has identified miscommunication within the Indonesian National Police (Polri) concerning the investigation into the alleged assault on activist Andrie Yunus.

The case involves four defendants, members of the TNI Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS), who faced their first trial at the Military Court II-08 Jakarta on charges of splashing corrosive liquid on Yunus, the Deputy Coordinator of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS). The defendants are Sergeant Dua Edi Sudarko (ES), First Lieutenant Budhi Hariyanto Widhi (BHW), Captain Nandala Dwi Prasetyo (NDP), and First Lieutenant Sami Lakka (SL).

Presiding Judge Suparna stated that based on the facts presented, there was a "miscommunication among the respondent institutions." He noted that while the Polda Metro Jaya (Jakarta Metropolitan Police) investigation was still active and had not issued a termination notice (SP3), statements made during a hearing with Commission III of the House of Representatives indicated that the case file and evidence had been handed over to the TNI Military Police Center (Puspom TNI).

This transfer of jurisdiction was further complicated by a statement from the Head of Public Relations for Polda Metro Jaya during a press conference on April 1, 2026. The spokesperson asserted that police investigators' authority had concluded upon submitting the investigation results and evidence to Puspom TNI. "We reiterate that the case file has been transferred, and currently, the authority of the Polda Metro Jaya police investigators has reached that point, submitting the investigation results and evidence digitally and so forth," the judge quoted the police spokesperson.