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Court rejects Ahok video uploader’s pretrial motion
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Maintaining innocence: Buni Yani (center), the suspected uploader of Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s alleged blasphemous video, appears at the Jakarta Police headquarters for questioning on Nov. 24. (Antara/Puspa Perwitasari)
T
he South Jakarta District Court rejected on Wednesday a pretrial motion lodged by Buni Yani, the uploader of a video of Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama’s alleged blasphemous speech, saying accusations that the Jakarta Police had named him suspect without following proper procedure could not be proven.
Investigators at the Jakarta Police followed proper procedure, including conducting a case reconstruction, prior to naming Buni a suspect of inciting religious and ethnic hatred on social media, said the trial’s lone judge, Sutiyono.
“Naming of the suspect was based on procedure. Therefore, the plaintiff’s motion is rejected,” Sutiyono read out the ruling at the hearing.
“[The plaintiff’s accusation that] the Jakarta Police did not hold a case reconstruction cannot be proven.”
(Read also: Prosecutors promise to prove Ahok's criminal intent during trial)
The court also argued that the police had named Buni a suspect after obtaining at least two pieces of evidence in line with the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) requirements and a National Police chief regulation on investigation procedures.
Buni filed a pretrial motion to challenge the police’s decision to name him a suspect in the case. He previously said he had been criminalized and that naming him a suspect was not lawful because investigators did not do a case reconstruction in their investigation and instead immediately declared him a suspect.
Buni, who is a university lecturer in Jakarta, was named a suspect after he posted on his Facebook account an edited version of a video that showed Ahok mentioning a Quranic verse, which was later considered blasphemous and triggered uproar among some Islamic organizations. (hwa)
