T

he South Jakarta District Court on Monday annulled the Jakarta Police’s decision to halt the investigation into the sexual assault allegation involving GN, a high-ranking official with the National Land Agency (BPN).

The court ordered the police to continue investigating the case, which had been halted since November last year due to a lack of evidence. Presiding judge Aksir said that current evidence comprising victims’ testimonies, voice records and copies of some electronic mails should have been sufficient to examine the case.

“After looking at the evidence, the court decided to grant the plaintiff’s wish. The court orders the Jakarta Police to reopen the case,” Aksir said.

The plaintiffs, AN, AIF and NPS — all GN’s subordinates in the agency — objected to the police’s decision last week, saying that the decision to drop the report was detrimental to them.

GN, a director at the BPN’s directorate general for land rights management, allegedly sexually harassed the women between March and July last year in the BPN office in South Jakarta. While the three received repeated abuse, AIF reportedly suffered the most and had allegedly been abused since 2010.

The three women had been referred to psychiatrists to receive treatment for the trauma they were experiencing.

They said that GN had threatened them, should any of the women report the case to the police. Despite the warning, the women filed a complaint with GN’s superiors at BPN, but to no avail.

The victims then filed a report with the police in September. The police started investigating the case in October but dropped it a month later, saying that they could not find strong evidence and eyewitness accounts to charge GN under the Criminal Code’s Article 294 on adultery.

Violations of the article, if proven, could result in a maximum seven year prison term.

Ahmad Jazuli, the plaintiff’s lawyer, said that he hoped the police would not file an appeal in respect of the court’s verdict. “We want the police to follow the court’s ruling and reopen the investigation of the case,” Ahmad told The Jakarta Post.

“We will start to believe that the police wish to protect the perpetrator, should they file an appeal,” Ahmad added.

Ahmad said that the police would not handle the case like other crimes. He said that the police could not expect to find many eyewitnesses to charge the perpetrator. “The police should use the victims’ testimonies as the main evidence,” he said.

Apart from the women’s testimonies, Ahmad said that the lawyer’s team had readied the transcripts of the conversation between GN and the victims, in which GN admitted his wrongdoings and apologized.

“GN apologized not only to the victims but also to their spouses, so we have more than the victims as witnesses. We can bring the voice record and GN’s written apologies to the victims to support the investigation,” Ahmad said.

Adj. Sr. Comr. Aminullah, who represented the Jakarta Police during the pre-trial hearing, said that his team had yet to decide whether it would appeal.

“We have to study the judge’s verdict first,” he said.

Jakarta Police’s spokesperson Sr. Comr. Rikwanto declined to comment on the court’s verdict. “The court had just handed down the verdict today. We haven’t discussed the result with others.” (asa)